“Just leave me alone!” she called back over her shoulder.
I jogged to catch up with her. There was no way I was letting her get away like this. “Ari, hold up.”
She whirled around when I reached her. “You totally humiliated me in there! All you think about is yourself. Did you even think before telling a bunch of strangers that you didn’t sleep with me?”
“I was just trying to prove that I like you, Ari. You make it so f**king impossible.”
“You like me?” she gasped out. “That’s how you want to show it?”
“I’m not a f**king flowers-and-chocolates kind of guy. If you haven’t noticed, I’ve never done this before!”
“That’s not an excuse! I’ve never been with an ass**le rocker who thinks he’s God’s gift to women, but you don’t see me humiliating you in public! Or better yet, sneaking out of your house and then not speaking to you for three days!” she threw back in my face.
“Well, I’m sorry, but the biggest cocktease on the planet f**ked with my head, and it took me—”
“Cocktease?” she roared. “I am not a—”
“Would you shut up for one minute?” I yelled right back. “Fuck! Just let me talk, woman.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and huffed.
“I was going to say, it took me three f**king days to get my head back on straight, and I realized that I can’t escape you.”
“Escape me? What do you mean?”
“I’ve never dated. I’ve just never cared. Never, babe,” I said, running a hand back through my hair. “But I f**king care about you.”
Chapter 20: Aribel
Date Two
Grant and I spent the next afternoon at the movies. I was prepared for one show before going home.
I was still pretty pissed about everything that had happened. Yes, he cared about me. Yes, he liked me. Yes, he had done all these things with me that he had never done with anyone else before. But still, the way he’d responded to it all made me want to throat-punch him.
The ass**le had weaseled his way back in. I could no longer deny that I liked Grant. The three days without him had proven that, and once the anger from him humiliating me had fizzled out, I’d still wanted to see him.
Somehow, he’d managed to pick the movie I wanted to see. He’d said it was what he wanted and that he had been dying to see it since it came out last weekend. I hadn’t even told him that I liked comedies.
Grant slipped his hand into mine as we exited the theater, and he pulled me back toward him.
“What?” I asked.
“Shh,” he said with a mischievous smile.
I narrowed my eyes but held my tongue. He walked us down the hallway we had just come through. Are we taking a back exit to the parking lot?
When the hallway was empty, he opened up another door and gestured for me to walk inside.
My eyebrows rose. “Grant, what are we doing?”
“Just go inside.”
He smacked my ass, and I glared at him.
“Come on, Princess, play along.”
I didn’t say anything. I just walked inside.
Grant walked all the way to the back row of the empty theater, and we took seats just as whatever movie we had just stumbled into started playing.
His arm came down across my shoulders, and he nuzzled my neck. “I think we should have come to this showing first,” he murmured.
“Why is that?”
I should have been freaking out that we had walked into a movie without paying, but whatever he was doing to my neck was distracting.
“I was having trouble keeping my hands to myself in that crowded theater.”
“You always have trouble keeping your hands to yourself.”
“You like it.”
I didn’t reply. His hand ran down my side, and then he pulled me into his lap.
We made out through the next two movies.
Date Five
Two weeks later, Grant told me to bring a bathing suit and nothing else. It was October in Jersey. Is he out of his mind? Where the hell are we supposed to go swimming when it was forty degrees outside at night?
Grant parked his truck outside of a hotel. Well, there’s my answer. His friend worked at the place and had slipped him a key card to the indoor pool. After dark, Grant and I snuck inside. Actually, it was more like Grant dragged me inside. First, the movies, and now, breaking into a hotel swimming pool?
“We’re not breaking in,” Grant tried to reassure me. “I have a key.”
“That you basically stole from an employee.”
“Darlin’, if we get caught, I’ll let them haul me off to jail. Just don’t hurt my truck, all right?”
I rolled my eyes and slipped out of my clothes. I self-consciously covered my stomach as I stood before Grant in my blue-and-white striped bikini. He’d seen me in less, but I couldn’t help it. His eyes roamed my body, and I quickly skipped into the heated pool.
What he couldn’t see before, he had his hands all over as soon as he’d gotten into the pool. “Have you ever broken into a pool before?”
“You just said we didn’t break in!”
His eyes shined with amusement.
“Gah! No.”
“Ever done anything illegal?”
“I’ve drank alcohol before,” I answered lamely.
“Drugs?”
I shook my head.
“Stolen anything?”
“Nope.”
“Do you at least speed in your car?”
I smiled up at him.
“Damn, you’re picture-perfect, Princess.”
“I once slapped a guy across the face for grabbing my butt at a bar,” I offered with a shrug.
He responded by grabbing my ass. Typical.
He held my slick body against his, and all I saw were the deep chocolate orbs and flecks of gold catching the moonlight through the windows. He seemed more contemplative than usual. Normally, he just wanted to attack me.
“What do you like to do when you’re not studying?”
“I’m always studying.”
“You’re not right now. Are you saying you like to do me when you’re not studying?” He winked.
“Wouldn’t you already know if that were the case?” I shot back.
“Indulge me, Ari.”
His lips grazed mine tenderly, and for the hundredth time since we’d decided to give this a shot, I thought that I was definitely going to let him do whatever he wanted.
“Horseback riding,” I finally answered, coming to my senses. “I did it as a kid, and I almost always go when I’m at home.”