Free Break Me by Evelyn Glass Page A

pizza had. He looked larger than life, and completely out of place.
     
    “I’m sorry your meeting was a bust,” she said, rooting through her kitchen drawers for a bottle opener. “Move whatever you need to set things down.”
     
    “I shouldn’t,” he said. His voice sounded tight, almost choked. When she glanced at him, she saw his eyes were locked on the curve of her ass as she bent over, going through a lower drawer. She shifted her hips slightly from side to side, and watched his breath catch as he licked his lips.
     
    The thought of his tongue sent waves of need through her core, sparkling like electricity. Control , she thought. Just a little bit of control. Please .
     
    “Why not?” She didn’t mean for her tone to come out that airy and flirty, but once it was free in the world, well, what was she going to do?
     
    “Because if I set these down,” he said, that tight tone still filling his voice, “then my hands will be free. And if my hands are free, I don’t know how I’m going to resist the urge to lift you up on that counter and fuck you until you scream.”
     
    Bottle opener in hand, she turned back. To torture him, she put her elbows on the counter and leaned back, crossing one ankle over the other and tossing her head for a moment so that her hair fell around her shoulders. He made a little sound that she loved. “And what if I say no?”
     
    That seemed to wash over him like a bucket of cold water. He set the pizza down on the space on her coffee table, and the beer on the floor next to it. His hands went into his pockets, then, because apparently that contained them. Sex kryptonite lined , she thought, and choked down the nervous giggle.
     
    “Honestly,” he said, his voice careful now, “If you said no, I think I’d leave you the pizza and beer and go. I—if what you need is friends, Zoey, I can do that, and I will honor our agreement, but I don’t think I can be your friend tonight.”
     
    “You hurt me last night,” she said. “You scared me.”
     
    He nodded. “I should never have stepped in that room with you. I knew that hurting you was a possibility, and I told myself that I could stay in control.”
     
    “But you didn’t.”
     
    “But I didn’t.”
     
    She nodded. In an odd way, it was better than an apology.
     
    “So what are you here for, then?” Zoey asked. In her head, it was a polite, vaguely flirtatious question. Out of her mouth, it clunked a bit as it hit the floor. He winced. She couldn’t really blame him for that.
     
    “To apologize,” he said. “To say that I’m incredibly sorry that I hurt you. To say that I understand if you never let me touch you again.” He gestured at the pizza and the beer. “To offer a peace offering.”
     
    “What’s on the pizza?”
     
    He shuffled his feet. “I, uh. Guessed that you were the kind of person who would appreciate the local dive. I stuck my head in there, and they knew you. So I ordered your favorite. I couldn’t decide if it was stalker-creepy or awesome, but I went with it.”
     
    “And how do you feel about pepperoni and mushroom?”
     
    “It’s not a combination I’ve had, but I’m eager to try.”
     
    She watched him and let her thoughts chase themselves around for a few moments. No, maybe this wasn’t the smartest thing ever. She could tell herself, over and over, that she wasn’t going to end up in bed with him. But the crazy thing was, there weren’t rules about this, or at least, nothing other than the rules they made for themselves. Besides, she missed his hands coursing over her skin, missed it like she missed raindrops in a field and being able to see the stars at night. “It’s really good,” she said, settling into her old sofa and passing him the bottle opener.
     
    Relief spread over his face, but he hid it quickly. Maybe he worried that she’d be overwhelmed or intimidated by his own attachment to this. It was a silly worry, but she could see where it would come