Chapter Eight

Rafe

I didn’t mean for it to go that far. I really just wanted to tease her a little bit, but her high-pitched whine in my ear made me forget this was just a game.

Then my fingertips found those bare tits, and it was over.

I can’t remember the last time a woman made me feel so out of control. Thank fuck I was able to pump the brakes when I did. She kept asking me to take her into her apartment, and for a moment, I considered it.

Instead, I locked my door and did about a hundred pushups until three o’clock this morning. I don’t have to be at the station until nine, so it gave me a couple hours to sleep.

I thought I could at least enjoy a cup of coffee in peace, until I hear a knock on my door around 7:30. Letting out an exhausted sigh, I pull the door open and find her standing there, freshly showered with her long auburn curls clipped back so they fall straight down her back. She’s in her pastel blue scrubs, which hug her tits in a way that I’ve never noticed before, but now I can’t seem to take my eyes off of them. I wonder if she’s at least wearing a bra today.

“Good morning,” I growl, coffee cup in hand.

She looks like she’s preparing herself for a fight, shoulders squared, jaw set. I want to ask her if she ever made good on her promise to ‘take care of herself’ last night. The thought of it has the blood coursing to places other than my brain.

“I am not going to fuck you,” she blurts out, and my eyes go wide.

Somewhere down the hall, a door opens and feet shuffle toward the elevator. Shelby’s eyes dart away as she notices that we have an audience too. I pull her in by the strap of her shoulder bag and shut the door behind her. I don’t need my neighbors thinking I'm preying on young single women in the building.

“A little early for that, isn’t it?” I ask, glaring down at her. Her round doe eyes stare up at me, and I almost get lost in those wild green irises.

“This thing between us,” she says, pointing back and forth between us. “This isn’t happening. That stuff you did last night was straight up manipulative.”

“Manipulative?” I ask with a crooked brow. “I didn’t hear you complaining.”

“Well, you caught me at a weak moment. I thought I knew you, Rafe Nolan, but now I know you’re just a self-centered, grumpy, manipulative asshole, and we’re not having sex…”

Dropping my coffee cup on the counter, I step toward her because there’s something about the way she’s running her mouth at me that has me feeling like she wants this too. I never properly kissed her last night, and while she’s right...this thing between us is not happening...I still can’t help but think we could have a little fun with this electric hate we’ve created.