My anger swiftly changes to desire at the feel of his teeth nibbling my bottom lip, and a whimper involuntarily leaves me when he pulls away.
“I don’t believe for a second you fake it, Liv.” He ghosts his nose along my jawline. “I can feel the realness of your reaction in your body. I saw it earlier—I felt it earlier. My fingers barely brushed your gorgeous arse and you moved away as if I’d run them along your pu**y. Your body responds to me whether you want it to or not, and it does it so clearly. So obviously.”
“My body is a liar,” I breathe when he lightly sucks on my earlobe.
“Much like you.” His words are spoken again my skin with a gentle brush of his lips.
“My dislike of you is no lie, Tyler.”
“Your body didn’t get the memo, babe. Your body likes me. A f**king lot.”
“My body is deluded.”
He kisses down my neck to my pulse point, where he pauses and sucks lightly. I swallow my gasp. He slides his hand around to my ass and cups it, his fingers flexing against the material of my jeans before he brings his mouth back to my ear.
“Your body is smarter than you think.”
“My body operates on base desire. I operate on common sense.” Something which appears to be evading me right this second.
“Evidently. Your body has been responding to me all day, while your mouth has been fighting me.” He kisses a slow, lazy path up my neck. “Why do you fight me, Liv? You should know it’s pointless. You should know that, if I wanted to slip my hand down the back of these jeans and slide my fingers inside your pu**y, I would. And you know you wouldn’t stop it.”
Tyler’s breath is warm against my lips, and he releases his grip on my hair, instead dropping his hand to my neck and curving his fingers around it.
I feel the truth of his words. Despite how annoyed I am at him, how he riles me, he’s right. Our arguing is like an odd form of foreplay that affects us both.
But if he were to touch me now, I know I wouldn’t stop it. I would be powerless to—because all I want to do is the exact same thing. Slide my hand down the front of his jeans and wrap my fingers around his bulging erection. I want to feel the velvety skin beneath my fingertips while I stroke him, and I want to taste the saltiness of him on my tongue.
Because, apparently, my base desire is the reason my common sense has done a runner.
“I can see it,” he whispers, bringing his hand around to the front of my body, one finger crooked inside the waistband. “It’s written all over your face, babe. You deny it all you like, but you know you want me.”
He undoes the button and slips his hand down. He brushes across my clit through my panties, and I fist his shirt at his sides, my lips parting.
“That’s why you’re not stopping me.”
“This is wrong,” I protest lamely as he moves my panties to the side. “They’re out there, waiting for us…”
“And I’m about to make you come all over my fingers, so they can wait a little longer.”
The roughness of his voice combined with the pressure of him dipping two fingers inside me makes me gasp. I don’t even try to swallow this one. His thumb finds my clit and he rubs in slow circles, in time with the movement of his fingers.
My hips move against him until I’m riding his hand, the deep, curved strokes of his fingers inside me pushing me close to an orgasm I don’t want. If only out of principle. I don’t want to come and prove everything he said to be true.
“Don’t fight it, Liv. I don’t care if we’re in here for five seconds or for five minutes. Neither one of us is leaving this room until you’ve come, and my fingers definitely aren’t leaving your gorgeous pu**y until you have.” He brushes his lips across mine, his tongue flicking out at the seam of my mouth. “And believe me, I could stand here and wait for you to come all night.”
It’s there, right there, a tight ball of need and lust and desire just ready to unravel throughout my body.
“The longer you wait, the worse it’ll be, and you and I both know you can’t make a sound.” He covers my mouth with his to swallow the moan that escapes me. “Like that.” He pushes hard on my clit. “You definitely can’t do that, or I might as well push you against this wall and f**k you because that’s what everyone will be thinking we’re doing anyway.”
My body clenches at those words, at the mere thought of having him inside me again. I crave it like I crave the orgasm I’m denying myself.
Crave.
Want.
Need.
Like I can’t fight anymore, like my mind gives in to the intense ache in my core, the ball unravels. Pleasure rushes through my body, right through to my fingertips and down to my toes. My legs shake, and it’s only Tyler’s arm snaking around my body that keeps me standing.
It’s a rush, a whirlwind… A crazy realization that I might not be able to keep him away after all.
Tyler pulls his hand out of my jeans and pulls me close to him. “You didn’t make a sound. Good girl.”
“I can’t f**king believe you just did that,” I say shakily. I pull back from him and smack my hand against my forehead. “What the hell, Tyler? What the hell, Liv?” I finish to myself.
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
His dark eyes follow me as I walk to the door, burning into me. Branding me, almost.
“It was nothing you didn’t want to happen.”
“I did not want that to happen.” I yank open the door.
“Did you ever say no?”
I look over my shoulder, slowly bringing my eyes up to meet his. “You are dangerous, Tyler Stone, and I don’t do danger.”
“On the contrary,” he says, walking up behind me and brushing his fingers down my cheek. “I think you do. I think you crave danger and the risk that goes with it. It’s in your eyes, babe. You’re wild.”
“You know nothing about me, so please don’t stand there and pretend you do. And even if you are right and I am wild, what makes you think you can handle me?” I quirk my eyebrows and turn away from him, leaving him laughing quietly to himself.
He’s hot on my heels when we return to the front of the store and find Dayton mulling over two different types of flowers. Tyler trails a fingertip from my shoulder blades to the top of my butt, making me shiver, and I catch his smirk as he steps to the side.
“Liv. Are you okay?”
I snap back to reality, tearing my eyes away from him and resting them on my best friend. “Y’know, I’m not feeling great. I’m going to head home and chill before work.” I hug her briefly. “And make sure you go for the light pink for me. We do still have to get my dress, and you know I’m not hot with fuchsia.”