Last night I said I’d marry him. Today I’m breaking his heart.
It’s all his fault, my cocky coworker. He’s always pushing my buttons, needling me day in and day out and challenging everything I do and everything I am. I hate him.
And what I hate most is how handsome he is. I hate that he can back up his words with actions. I hate that he’s strong and dominant and that when he sets his sights on taking something nothing will stop him.
Last night I said yes to marrying the man I love. Today my coworker, my bully, showed me that my husband-to-be just might not be enough for a woman like me. With a single action he opened my world to a new possibility and stood there grinning, confident that he would have me in the end.
And I think he’s going to, because I can’t help myself anymore. I’m dreaming of my bully. I’m craving my bully. My body aches for him, even while my heart breaks.
I know what it’s like when someone cheats on you. I had it happen to me and it tore my whole world apart.
I know it’s wrong to say yes to this, but I don’t know if I can help myself anymore.
Excerpt
“You don’t know shit, Caleb,” I seethed, “You think you know me, think you know what I want, but you don’t know me and you don’t know John.”
That infuriating smile didn’t leave his lips, “Well you’re wrong about that. I know you well enough to know that I could break you in an instant.”
And I just said those words, those words that changed everything. Instead of letting him stay an asshole and ignoring him like I always did, I rose to the bait.
“Prove it.”
Caleb’s arm shot out and the lock on our office door clicked shut. My eyes went a little bit wider and I realized before it was too late just how close he was to me but I didn’t have time enough to squirm out and step away before he grabbed me and slammed me up against the door.
Locked in between him, the firm and solid door behind me and his hands on my shoulders but slipping down. They let go of me just long enough to find my waist and pull it out, our bodies connecting for one instant for the first time.
I looked up defiant into his eyes, fire blazing behind my gaze but his cool and cold cruelty manifested in bemusement at my flame.
“Fuck you, Caleb,” I spat the words in his face.
“Time enough for that,” he quipped, then slipped down and kissed me for the first time.
I liked it when John kissed me the way he did. He’d peck me on my cheek, give me a kiss on the forehead, press his lips against mine quick and chaste. I liked the way he kissed me because I knew that if I was kissed with an ounce more passion than that it would be hard to hold fast to my commitment to remaining chaste, because the few times he kissed me harder than that it had been so tempting to throw caution to the wind and give in to my urges.
Caleb didn’t know any of that. His image of me as some wanton woman might have guided the way he kissed me but in truth, I think he probably kissed all women the way that he kissed me.
He kissed me like we were at war, parting his lips and pressing his tongue in past my defenses. He pulled on my lips with his, nipped at me while his hands tugged me tight into him and his fingers teased at the tight tension of my body and made me thrill.
He kissed me like he was consuming me, and unbeknownst to him he was throwing gasoline onto a fire and stoking it into a roaring blaze. My hands which had been holding back the tide against his chest slipped up to wrap around the back of his neck, to pull him into me as much as he was pulling me into him.
I was gone in an instant, overcome and overwhelmed and fucking mewling for him. Gasping and moaning so that by the time he broke from me the words to beg him to kiss me again were already on my lips.
But he didn’t. He pressed me back and stepped away. Cool as a cucumber he turned from me and left me breathing heavily and leaning against the door.
And Caleb didn’t say a word about this. He didn’t even look back at me to confirm that what had happened, that what I’d done, had played out precisely the way he thought it would. Because he didn’t think, he knew. Because Caleb knew me better than I had ever imagined.