As soon as I'd pulled myself together enough to stand, I'd fixed my clothes, grabbed my purse, and headed straight for the door.
I thought he would be right behind me--I assumed he would rush in the moment I was through my door, throw me down, kiss me hard.
I thought he was as crazy for me as I was for him. As hot. As wild.
I thought there was no way he could wait, because waiting was torture and he wanted relief.
I thought wrong.
He didn't come right away. He didn't come in ten minutes or thirty or sixty.
At ninety minutes, I was starting to get irritated.
At two hours, I was starting to get pissed.
And now, when my clock chimes that it is one in the morning, I fear that everything about the night was wrong. That he doesn't want me. That he wasn't turned on. That he is off somewhere fucking that bimbo, and that he was simply playing a game to get rid of me or to prove a point. Though god only knows what that point is supposed to be.
That I'm a fool, maybe?
That when he said we weren't going to do this I should have listened?
I remember what he said in his email: Hate me if you want.
Is he trying to make me hate him?
Finally, I can't take it anymore. I stand up and stretch--my legs are sore from not moving for so long--and then I tighten the sash on the damn robe that he'd ordered me to wear, the bastard.
I stalk up the stairs thinking I'll take a quick shower to cool my red hot mood, and then I'll crawl under the covers and sleep for a year. Or at least until tomorrow afternoon when I have to go to Midtown to tape my television appearance.
I consider firing off a nasty email to my darling asshole of a brother, but I decide not to. He'll be expecting that. Let him think I didn't wait at all. Let him think I didn't even notice that he didn't show. That I really don't care.
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
And while I'm at it, damn Liam Foster for convincing me to go to the mat. Because all that did was get my hopes up. All that did was cement just how much it matters to me.
Because I do care, dammit. I care and I want.
And now I'm hurt.
And Dallas is the one person that I don't want to hate. That I can't hate.
But after tonight, I think that I should hate him.
My bedroom is dark when I yank open the double doors, just the barest glint of city light peeking in around the edge of the shades that Ellen must have pulled down when she was cleaning. Odd, because she knows I like to wake to the sun.
I'm about to cross to the light switch when I realize my mistake. It wasn't Ellen who did this. It was Dallas.
"How did you get in?" I ask the dark room.
"You disobeyed," he says from the far corner. "I think you've forfeited any right to ask questions."
I turn toward the voice as a wash of light sprays over him from the reading lamp he's just switched on. He's seated in my burgundy leather reading chair, still wearing the suit he wore to the party, a half-empty crystal tumbler beside him.
"I told you to wait downstairs."
"I did." My heart is fluttering. I'm actually nervous about what he's going to do about my disobedience. More than that, I'm incredibly turned on, and I wonder if he can see how hard my nipples have become under the robe from all the way across the room.
His brows rise. "And yet here you are. Why?"