Desire flared between my legs, and the heat spread like a ripple in a lake through my body. Jared and I had never failed in the bedroom, and it’d been so long since I’d felt as good as he made me feel.

“How about last night?” he continued, taunting. “I think you lost control then.”

Ignoring my plans to escape to the bathroom—since I’d only been trying to have a quiet place to rid my head of thoughts of him and now he was here—I walked past him back down the hallway to make my way out the basement door. I wasn’t talking to him.

But then I gasped as he caught me from behind and wrapped his arms around my waist.

“What are you doing?” I bit out.

His arms were like a steel band, crushing my body into his. I breathed hard, nearly stumbling with his weight falling into me.

Shit.

“Tate,” he whispered in my ear, desperate. “Would it have been better if I had never left? Would you still love me if I kept living a lie?”

I turned my head away, folding my lips between my teeth.

I never wanted him miserable. Why was he trying to break my heart all over again? I’d just wanted him to stay.

I didn’t understand why he needed to leave me to feel whole.

Pinpricks tingled my skin, and his breath on my neck felt like it was flowing through my blood. Having him close felt so good.

I closed my eyes, taking in a breath of air. I needed to tell him to get his hands off me, but I couldn’t see straight.

But before I knew what was happening, he spun me around and lifted me up, setting me onto the pool table. He wrapped an arm around my thigh, and I whimpered as he jerked me to the end of the table. I started to fall back, but before I could right myself, he leaned down, dipping his lips to the skin of my stomach.

“Ah,” I moaned, shocked at what he was doing. My chest rose and fell fast as his lips and tongue, not to mention his teeth, worked my body and left a trail of sensation below my rib cage.

I fell back onto the table, unable to stop, simply trying to keep my eyes from rolling into the back of my head.

Jared.

Oh, my God. His mouth. And his teeth, tugging at my skin as if no time had passed.

I grabbed the back of his neck, arching my body into him. “Jared, get off me,” I groaned, my eyelids fluttering closed. “Please.”

But then he sank his teeth into the sensitive skin on my side, and I squeezed my eyes shut, the pleasure racing inside me almost too much.

“Jared, stop!” I yelled, urging him off me even as I clutched his neck, holding him to me.

His lips left my skin, and when I opened my eyes, his nearly black stare, dark with desire, had zoned in on my exposed breast.

Oh, shit.

In the struggle, my shirt was a mess. The spaghetti strap on one shoulder had fallen down my arm, and so had the part of the shirt covering my breast.

Jared looked up at me, raising himself higher as I shook my head.

“No,” I warned, knowing what he was going to do.

But he let out a low breath and sank his lips onto my skin anyway, covering my entire nipple with his mouth.

I groaned, feeling warm all over.

He swirled his tongue around my hardening flesh, catching my nipple between his teeth and drawing it out, playing with it. He went slow, diving back down to suck almost painfully hard, but I loved it.

“I said I would be back for you. You know there’s only me, Tate,” he pushed. “No one else can give you this.”

My fist squeezed at the back of his hair, and the pool of lust in my gut instantly cemented, turning hard and cold.

I stroked his cheek with my thumb, looking down at his handsome face. “I know you loved me. I never wanted you unhappy.” I spoke through my shaky breath. “But I don’t trust you. You always desert me.”

I pushed him away and jumped off the table, righting my clothes before I had any second thoughts about giving in.

Without looking back, I jetted up the staircase and back out to the pool, suddenly feeling the urge to go home.

Ben was standing with Madoc and Fallon—Madoc now in swim shorts—and they were all laughing as I came up to stand next to Fallon.

“Did you get the bottles?” Ben asked. “You were gone awhile.”

I blinked, remembering the bottles I’d told him I was getting.

Catching Madoc’s confused sideways glance at me, I just shook my head. “Couldn’t find what I was looking for. No biggie. So”—I looked to Madoc, changing the subject—“how’s the internship going?”

Madoc stuffed a chip in his mouth. “Good.” He nodded. “I kind of hate the stuck-up pricks in my father’s office, and the men are even worse, but I’ll get through it.”

Ben laughed, and I watched Madoc grab another handful of chips out of the bowl.

“Here,” Fallon said, grabbing the bowl and shoving it into Madoc’s chest. “You know you’re going to eat all of them.”

He shrugged and kept eating.

Fallon laughed. “You would think he was pregnant.” She smiled lovingly at her husband. “He ate the sushi you brought home yesterday, and the leftovers in the fridge, and then he ordered burgers from the Mining Company. He eats constantly.”

I let out a sigh, looking to Ben to gauge his reaction.

“Sushi?” he asked. “The sushi I brought you at work yesterday?”

“Tate hates sushi.” A voice came from behind us, and Jared walked up to the cooler, grabbing a long neck.