“You want to stop seeing me then you’ll stop seeing me, at least this way. I’m not gonna play that game.”

“I’m not playing games,” I snapped, interrupting him, now getting pissed off myself.

“Yeah. You are. You just don’t have enough experience to know you are.”

My mouth dropped open.

He did not just say that.

“I’m not playing games,” I repeated, a little more heatedly this time.

“What were you doin’ with Luke this afternoon?”

“I wasn’t playing a game.”

“Well Luke was and is and will continue to do it. And you didn’t get it and won’t get it until you get your head out of your ass.”

No…

Wait.

He did not just say that.

“I don’t have my head in my ass, he was kicking my ass!”

“He was f**kin’ with your head.”

I pulled free saying, “I’m going home.”

He caught me, rolled me to my back and rolled on me, full body, hand coming down, pulling out one of my legs until his h*ps were settled between both of them.

“Get off me, Crowe,” I demanded, squirming underneath him.

“Stop fightin’, Jules.”

“Get off me!”

“Stop fighting!” His voice had risen. I’d never heard his raised voice and my body froze at his tone.

“Don’t yell at me,” I whispered, feeling that weight in my chest again, knowing he was that angry with me and I hated that too.

It felt like these days I was always on the verge of crying and I couldn’t remember the last time I cried.

What was up with that?

He talked over my secondary freak out, further fuelling the fire of my first. “For Christ’s sake, I’m givin’ you what you want. I don’t know what’s in your f**kin’ head, you don’t even know what’s in your f**kin’ head. Until you’re ready to sort it out, it’s gonna stay f**ked up and I know enough to know there isn’t a f**kin’ thing I can do about it. So you want this to end, it ends. But tonight is mine. You want to f**k it up further, keep fightin’ me but I’m gonna have you fightin’ or sweet. I don’t care. But Jules, I’m tellin’ you, I’d rather it be sweet.”

I didn’t know what to say to that so I didn’t say anything. I just stayed silent.

He watched me for awhile then he said, “I’d be happy with fightin’ too. If what happened ten minutes ago is any indication, maybe I’d rather it be fightin’.”

I didn’t know if he was joking or being serious.

I decided to go with joking. “Stop joking,” I said quietly.

“I wasn’t joking.”

Okay then, he wasn’t joking.

That got a belly flutter.

“Well, I’ve decided to be sweet,” I said, just to be contrary.

He grinned and his grin was so at the ready it made me wonder if he’d used reverse psychology on me. Then his face came down and disappeared in my neck and I felt his lips there.

The belly flutter escalated to Grade Two.

“I’ve changed my mind,” I told the ceiling, “I’m going back to fighting.”

His hands went down my sides to my hips, he lifted them and then, I kid you not, he slid inside me slowly, gently but I could feel he was again rock hard.

My breath went out in a rush at the surprise of it and the fact that I moved from a Grade Two to a Grade Six in about three seconds.

“Vance,” I said softly and his lips moved from my neck to my mouth.

“That’s it, beautiful. Every time I slide inside you, I want you to say my name,” he muttered there.

He’d started moving and I started moving with him.

“I thought it was every time I came,” I whispered and his hands moved on me, a thumb sliding across my nipple as my hands roamed his back.

“I want you to say it then too.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I like it.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know why. It doesn’t matter why. I just do.”

That seemed plausible to me.

“Okay,” I said agreeably, my hands going over his ass and either my word or my hands (or both) made him grin again and he kissed me and started moving faster.

When he stopped kissing me and his mouth went to my ear I said in his, “You have to get a condom.”

“In a minute.”

“Vance.”

“In a minute.”

I rolled my eyes.

He drove in deep.

When he did it felt so good, I whispered his name low into his ear.

Then I slid my hands in his hair, pulling it back and I traced the outer edges of his ear with my tongue just like he’d done to me last night and I’d liked that too.

* * * * *

After the second time, when it was dark and I was curled into Vance’s side, his fingers drawing on my hip, the moonlight coming in from the two windows on either side of the fireplace and the one at the back of the room, I asked him in a whisper, “Were you mad at me when we got here?”

“I wasn’t happy to walk in the down room and see Luke on top of you. I wasn’t happy that you ignored me at the party. And I wasn’t happy you were breakin’ up with me. So yeah, I was mad at you when we got here.”

I went silent because I knew the answer already. I didn’t even know why I asked. I supposed if that was the way he took out his anger it wasn’t all that bad.

The minutes ticked away.

Then I asked, “Why do you have so many books in the living room?”

“I like to read when I’m here,” he answered.

“Why don’t you get a bookshelf?”

“Don’t need one.”

I supposed he didn’t. Still, he could use one.

For some reason I went on advising him about the décor of his cabin. “You should put new countertops in and refinish the cabinets in the kitchen,” I told him.

“Why?”

“It’ll look nicer.”

“It doesn’t have to look nice. It needs to keep me dry and warm.”

“But it’s your home,” I said.

“It’s just a cabin.”

Something about that hit me somewhere deep. If this wasn’t what he considered his home and he had no place in Denver, where was home?

I decided not to ask. He wouldn’t answer anyway and considering we were breaking up, I had no right to know.

Instead, I said, “I like my space to be special.”