Do You Want Me? (This Love Hurts, #0.5)

by W. Winters

“You said you’d let me go,” I whisper, speaking over my strangled breaths. My gaze never leaves his, even as tears prick my eyes. Not until he answers me. “I changed my mind.”

I’ve spent a number of nights with a toy between my legs, thinking about him.

Maybe it’s camaraderie from the now cold case or maybe it’s the mutual misery we’ve endured in this gray town riddled with corruption, but every time I see this man, I want to be under him more and more by the end of the night.

Right. Of course he’s thinking about business and not fucking me into his mattress.

I’m simply making the best with what I’ve got. Right now, that’s a tall glass of chardonnay and a handsome man to keep me company.

Some days you’re the dog. Some days you’re the hydrant.

“Anyone who helps a man do that to children, to little girls who were dead the moment he set their sights on them… a man who helps and does nothing to stop them deserves to rot in hell.”

Ghosts come back and I wish they didn’t. He started again.

I’m such a prick for leading her on. But damn do I love to be wanted by her. To be so obviously desired, it makes me feel in ways I’ve never felt before.

Alcohol and bad decisions taint the air between us.

The way her strength leaves her, the rawness and slight suffering that are evident in her pinched brow and tightened cords in her neck as she swallows, beg me to tell her the truth. That I’ve wanted her from the first time I saw her.

Arousal is primitive, obsession demeaning… what she is… is something hypnotizing. It was curiosity at first, then respect, and now... Well, now I’m not certain what she is to me. To us and to what we started so long ago.

I now have something I truly desire and no reason not to take it.

His steely blues stare me down with the look of a hunter. A look that makes me feel so very much as though I’m his prey.

I enjoyed last night. I enjoyed you. I don’t do flings and I don’t do girlfriends. I don’t fuck around with coworkers or people I see day to day. You know I don’t have time for a relationship. I’ve failed at every one of them I’ve ever had. I’m going to fuck this up. If this is even a thing. If this is something that you want to do again. That doesn’t change that I want you. I’ve wanted you for a long damn time and even after last night, I want you still. I can’t offer you commitment and I’m not good at much of anything other than my job. That’s where his message stopped and I’m quick to respond before I think too much about anything he said in this text and focus only on that kiss under the lights in the parking garage. Don’t think about it, just take me home tomorrow night.

A good fuck is a miracle worker for the tired mind and sore body.

A dozen deep red roses. After washing my face and changing into sweats, I text Cody: You didn’t have to send flowers. But they’re beautiful. His first text hits me like an ice bath washing down my bare skin. I miss you and I’ve been thinking of you, but I didn’t get you flowers. A follow-up text from him does nothing to help: Now I wish I had.

Brutal tasks require brutal men. To this day I don’t know what makes Cody the man he is, only that I want to know his secrets. I want him to trust me enough to do so.

I’ve never wanted anything or anyone like I want her and the sick part of me knows it’s because Cody pursued her. It’s a jealousy I haven’t been able to kick.

There was an unspoken deal, a bit of camaraderie between us. I’m not the one who changed things. What happens next is his fault, his doing. Not mine.