“I mean, I do. I just didn’t know if you wanted that too.”
He chuckles. “I’d be a crazy fool to pass up sex like that, Princess.” His comment makes me swell with pride, even though I didn’t feel like I did much. Overall, I felt like I was the one reaping the reward, but I’m glad to know that Javier felt like he was winning too.
“Okay then. Exclusive sexual partners.”
“You can just say friends-with-benefits, or fuck buddies. No need to be politically correct.”
My indifference comes out as a laugh. “Okay, sure.”
We exchange numbers and then I grab my purse to leave. “Thanks, I guess.”
Javier grins. “You’re welcome. Talk to you soon.”
“Yeah. See ya.” I leave his house without another word and hop in my car to drive home.
This is exactly what I wanted—no-strings-attached, hot and heavy sex—so why does my chest ache a bit with how nonchalant he was about the entire arrangement?
Perhaps I need to rewire my brain if I’m going to keep this up. Otherwise I have a feeling someone is going to get hurt—me.
Chapter 16
Javier
I’m fucking Sydney Matthews.
The thought that has been on repeat in my mind for the past week weaves its way to the forefront again as I drill in the next piece of drywall in the bedroom of the house we’re building.
It’s been seven days since I lived out a high school fantasy I think most men would admit to having—sex with the cheerleading captain, prom queen, and as an added bonus, the valedictorian. The seventeen-year-old boy in me is raving with confidence knowing that girl was in my bed and screaming out my name just a few days ago.
But the twenty-eight-year-old man I am now is having trouble accepting the predicament I now find myself in—drowning in need for a woman I never thought I’d have, let alone want. Sydney has not only infiltrated my bed and my spank bank highlights, but she’s digging herself into my everyday thoughts. I knew she was there before, but now that I’ve tasted her, felt her wrapped around my cock, and heard her moans of pleasure, it’s all I can think about.
I told her this could only be sex, and honestly, I feel like that’s all I could give her. I’m not the type of man she needs—a stuffy suit that rolls around in hundred dollar bills before he falls asleep on his eight-hundred count Egyptian cotton sheets at night. I’m just a blue-collar worker with a past that would probably make her run for the hills the second she realized what a monster I can be.
And that’s part of the reason why I didn’t kiss her. Kissing is intimate, more intimate than sex, I might argue. Believe me, I want to taste her, but if her lips pull me in like her pussy has, I don’t think I’d come up for air.
Even though I’m striving to move beyond my past indiscretions, that part of me is still in there—a man who can snap at the drop of a hat. Beating the shit out of Jesus wasn’t the first time I’d lost it. But given the other details of that night, it was first time I almost killed someone.
Sydney is too pure for someone like me.
Pure—funny how I would use that word to describe her after she begged for me to fuck her. The woman definitely surprised me with how brazen she can be and how willing she is to let me have my way with her. Of course, it’s always the prudes in public that are freaks in the sheets, right?
Regardless of how she likes to be handled in bed, the woman is tight-laced and upstanding, and I am not. I’m jagged and flawed. A little broken and lost. I have no idea what my future will hold, which is yet another reason why sex with Sydney can only be a momentary distraction.
“Hey, Javi?” Trilch calls to me from the other side of the house we’re working on, pulling me from my self-deprecating thoughts.
I set down my drill and then trudge across the concrete floors, finding him in the master bathroom. “What’s up?”
“I don’t think this is the right tile, man. I’m looking at these plans and it says white marble, but this is more gray, don’t you think?”
I grab the paper from his hands and check the product number on the plans with the box. Fuck, he’s right. These aren’t the right ones.
“Shit. How the fuck did this happen? And why wasn’t this checked after it was delivered?”
Trilch just shrugs and then moves his hand up to swipe the sweat from his brow. “That’s not my job, boss.” I glare at him, knowing he’s insinuating this is my fault. “You’ve been a little distracted lately, so something was bound to get fucked up.”
“What are you implying, Trilch?”
He shrugs again. “Nothing. I just know that there’s usually a reason a man can’t focus. And my money is that reason is a woman.”
I scoff, throw the paper down on the work station, and then begin to walk away. “Get back to work, fucker. I’ll go get this tile debacle situated.” I bend down to grab the boxes of tiles and then walk out to the truck, loading them in the back.
I wonder if Trilch can sense that something happened between Sydney and me? He was there when she ragged on me at Russo’s. He saw the tension between us. But he couldn’t possibly know that we crossed that line from enemies to lovers … could he?
As I drive across town to the supplier that Gibson Construction uses for flooring, countertops, and tile, I can’t help the grin that graces my lips as I think about the last time I went to buy tile—Sydney’s smug look on her face when she picked out the tile I’m installing in my house, her challenge when she asked me to teach her how to lay it, the scream she let
