“Your head hurt?” he asked.

“Only if I think about it,” I answered.

“Bruised,” he muttered, his eyes still on my temple.

“It’s not that bad,” I pointed out and it wasn’t. This was surprising, considering how much it hurt when it happened, but it was true.

His gaze moved to mine.

“What’s wrong, Laurie?”

“Nothing will be wrong once I get my coffee.”

“Why do you wanna go back to the hotel?”

“To swim before I have to go to work.”

“Deck time now. I’ll take you to the hotel and hang while you swim after work, before we come up here.”

I shook my head.

“I’m not coming up here after work,” I told him.

His fingers at my head tensed and his arm around my body tightened.

“Come again?” he asked.

“I’m not coming here after work,” I repeated and his face changed from searching and gentle to a little bit scary.

“Why not?”

“I’ll need to call Mom, Dad, Carrie, check in. Make sure everything is still okay. I haven’t called for a couple of days.”

“You can do that here.”

“It’s long distance.”

“So?”

“We talk a long time. It might be expensive.”

“Been leakin’ money awhile, babe, but just got two big paychecks and I wasn’t destitute before that. Think I can cover a long distance phone call.”

I tried a different strategy. “I don’t want you to watch me while I swim. It’ll put me off.”

“Then I’ll hang with Ned while you swim.” His faced dipped closer and his tone dipped lower. “And then hang with you when you shower after you swim.”

I pulled my head back.

“Tate, what I’m saying is, I need some alone time.”

His head pulled back too but his arm grew tighter.

“What the f**k?” he whispered.

“Alone time,” I reiterated.

“Just had three weeks of alone time, Ace,” he reminded me, his voice back to a little bit scary.

“Tate –”

“Laurie, I’ll repeat my earlier question. What’s up your goddamned ass?”

At his words and tone, my hands reflexively clenched his biceps and I stared at him.

Then I told him. “This isn’t working for me.”

With a hint of alarm I watched his eyes narrow and I felt that dark, bad vibe energy start to spark from him.

“What isn’t working?” he asked.

I took a hand from his bicep and motioned between him and me before putting it back and putting pressure on both.

“Us,” I answered.

My h*ps went back into the counter because he pressed them there.

“Seemed to be workin’ last night when you were f**kin’ me so hard you couldn’t breathe,” he reminded me.

“Yes, well…”

“Yes, well what?”

“Um…”

His hand left my hair and became an arm wrapped around my upper back, jerking me tighter to his body.

“Jesus, Lauren, I’ll ask one more f**kin’ time. What’s up your goddamned ass?”

At that, I lost hold of my temper which was my only choice since the only other thing I could do was lose hold on the tears I’d been ignoring since my couch contemplations last night and our scene in the bed early that morning.

“You’re a jerk!” I snapped.

“Yeah, I get pissed, I am. So?”

I felt my eyes get wide. “So?” I repeated.

“Not somethin’ you don’t know about me, Ace.”

“I don’t like it!”

“Yeah?” he asked and went on before I could answer. “And I don’t like it when you lose hold of your attitude and turn into a bitch. But since most of the time you’re sweet or hilarious or you make my dick get hard, I can put up with that.”

“There it is,” I pointed out, trying to slide away at the same time pushing against his biceps but his arms got super tight and I stopped.

“What?”

“You just called me a bitch!”

“Babe, honest to God?” he asked, his voice impatient.

“Honest to God!” I snapped, my voice rising.

“You don’t know you can be a bitch?”

“No, I don’t. Normally I’m not. You draw it out in me.”

“So I’m not only a jerk, it’s me who makes you a bitch,” he stated.

“Yes,” I replied.

His arms didn’t loosen even as he tipped his head back and looked at the ceiling.

“Jesus,” he muttered.

“Let me go,” I demanded and his head tipped forward again.

“No,” he replied.

“And there it is again!” I declared instantly.

“What?” he clipped, his arms giving me a mini-shake.

“I get that you’re an alpha male, Captain, but bossing me around, making me do stuff I don’t want to do? Not… liking… that.”

His face dipped close. “All right, Ace, get it all out. What else?”

I’d had enough, more than enough, so I got up on my toes and got close to his face too. “Okay, Captain, here goes,” I started. “Neeta, Wood, Neeta, Wood and maybe a little bit more of Neeta and Wood!”

“You wanna expand on that?” he growled.

“Not me not expanding, Tate,” I snapped.

Tate head twitched then, immediately, he started his story.

“Knew her for as long as I can remember. Hooked up with her in high school. Partly ‘cause she was gorgeous, mostly ‘cause she put out. I was seventeen, she was fifteen and I wasn’t her first.”

I gasped at the knowledge that Neeta put out (and he wasn’t her first) at the age of fifteen. I lost my virginity at the age of twenty-one to my college sweetheart after his pre-graduation fraternity dance. We’d been going together for two years and he’d taken me to a posh hotel and bought me roses and told me he’d love me until the day he died after we did it. We were still friends and he called me on my birthday every year and each time he did we laughed together about the good old days for at least an hour.

It was doubtful at fifteen Neeta held out for posh hotels and roses and equally doubtful her first still remembered her birthday, if he ever knew it at all.

Tate continued. “She was wild but I knew that about her and it was a f**kin’ blast, always. She could have fun, Neeta. Always smilin’, laughin’, dancin’. She’d get up from watchin’ TV and dance into the f**kin’ kitchen to get a drink. The world was a dance for her. A party all in her head. But when I hooked up with her, spent that much time with her, something struck me, somethin’ not right about it. It wasn’t until later I realized she wasn’t wild. She was desperate. For what, I still don’t f**kin’ know, spent years tryin’ to figure it out same time I spent those years tryin’ to give it to her. All I know is, back then, I was too young and too addicted to her mouth wrapped around my c**k to think of much else.”