“Your mother owns the school I’m going to?”
“Yeah,” I repeated, not really sure if she was asking a question or not. From what she had up on the screen, it was pretty obvious my family was connected to almost every legal business venture in the world.
“So were you ever going to share that information?”
“Probably not,” I admitted.
“Liam!” She swiveled in the desk chair until she was facing away from both me and the computer. She leaned over and dropped her forehead to her fingers.
“What?” I snapped at her. I was still tired and had never been accused of being a morning person anyway. The sudden attack just as I was waking up was pissing me off. ?
??After a forty-eight hour relationship, I should have given you a copy of the family tree? You want a list of birthmarks? If I withhold the name of my favorite teddy bear from when I was five, will that piss you off, too?”
Tria looked up at me, her eyes still dark.
“Like all the other shit I told you last night, none of it matters.”
“You knew I was going to Hoffman since the night we met,” she said. “It never occurred to you to mention your mom runs the place?”
“She doesn’t run it. She owns it. She shows up for gala events in a dress that costs as much as a year’s tuition, cuts ribbons, opens champagne bottles, and throws money at people to make her feel like she’s helping the ‘less fortunate.’ That’s what she does.”
“I’m trying to do this…this relationship, and I don’t even know who you are!”
“I’m the same guy you’ve been living with,” I told her. “There’s nothing different about me because I have some blood ties to a bunch of people who mean nothing to me. I haven’t seen them in nearly ten years, and as far as I’m concerned, I’m never going to see them again. I’m not a part of that family you see on the screen. My name probably isn’t even mentioned. I’m no more a part of the family there than you are of that fucked up douchebag. If they mean nothing to me, I don’t know why they should suddenly be so fucking important to you!”
“Because you could have everything!” she yelled at me. She tightened her hands into fists, and she held them against her thighs. “Why do you do this to yourself? Why?”
“Well, currently it’s pissing you off, and that’s good enough for me!”
“You don’t make any sense at all!” She slammed her palms down on the desk.
I couldn’t really argue that with her, either, because I knew I wasn’t making sense. I didn’t want to make sense; I just didn’t want to talk about this shit at all.
Apparently, she wasn’t ready to give up.
“I wasn’t even around then!” she shouted. “So how could it possibly have been to piss me off?”
“I’m psychic.”
“You’re an idiot!” she screamed back at me.
Her eyes blazed at me now, and the heat from the pointless argument flowed around in my veins and warmed my skin. I could see the slight outline of her breasts through her T-shirt as she breathed heavily.
“You’re fucking hot when you’re pissed,” I told her.
Tria’s eyes widened, and her toes pushed against the plush carpet at her feet. The chair moved back slightly, but I was faster. With three steps I was across the room with my hands on her, lifting her up and out of the chair. I shoved the PC off the desk and onto the floor before I dropped her ass down where the computer sat moments before. My hands moved up her body and grasped the sides of her head.
I didn’t know what she was trying to say as I covered her mouth with mine. At that point, I didn’t care. I just knew I wanted to touch her—to be close to her—and I was too far away. I wanted to be closer.
I needed to be closer.
Inside of her.
“You drive me crazy,” I mumbled into her ear. I moved down her neck, snarling at her as my mouth moved across her skin. “I want you so fucking bad. Fucking undefined ground rules.”
I slid my hands down her back and grabbed her ass as I captured her lips again. I pulled her right to the edge of the desk and lodged myself between her legs, making it very obvious how much of an effect she had on me. She tensed under my touch, and I suddenly felt like an asshole, but I didn’t move away. I just started kissing her jaw and then her neck instead, so her mouth was free to tell me to fuck off if she wanted to.
She didn’t.