Meet Your Match (Kings of the Ice, #1)(64)

He had already moved on, his mission accomplished. He’d seen me naked, gotten his dick wet, and now I was just another conquest he could put behind him.

I’d told him as much that night in the restaurant, when he’d cornered me in the bathroom and told me he wanted me. I’d looked him right in the eyes and told him I saw him for what he was.

But even then, there was a small part of me that wondered if he was different, if I was judging him too harshly, if he’d prove me wrong in the end.

I knew now not to hold my breath.

When the limousine pulled up in front of the skyscraper I called home now, I climbed out and all but ran up to my condo. When I kicked off my heels, I looked around at the space — at the couch that wasn’t mine, the chairs that weren’t mine, the windows and the artwork and the stupid fucking fireplace that made no sense because we lived in Florida.

I was so homesick, I let the first tear fall free.

Swiping it away as soon as it fell, I grabbed my bag out of the closet and began packing. One night in my own house wouldn’t impact my job, and tonight, I wanted my bed.

“Shake it off, Maven,” I coached myself as I packed. “It’s fine. You are fine. Everything is fine.”

I almost believed it.

Until I strapped my bag over one shoulder and heaved my door open, only to find Vince standing in the middle of the hallway.

I halted, my bag swinging and nearly taking me forward with it before it slung back in place. Vince was stone where he stood, like a tortured god captured in statue form. It was like he was coming to get me and then had stopped himself, but then didn’t know where to go or what to do next, so he just stayed, waiting.

But for what?

We stood like that a long time before he started moving toward me, his pace slow, eyes never leaving mine until he was standing in front of me at my door. His gaze flicked to my bag then, and he swallowed, finding me once more.

“Where are you going?”

The spell was broken then, and I remembered the woman writhing in his lap. I chuffed a laugh out of my nose. “Home,” I said, then I let the door shut behind me, locking it and stalking down the hall.

Vince was on my heels.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

I growled, turning to shove him hard in the chest. “If you know, then why are you asking, you pompous prick?”

“Because I want to hear you say it.”

“Say what? That I’m disgusted by your public display of lust?”

“You’re not disgusted,” he challenged. “You’re mad. You’re jealous.”

I scoffed. “I am not—”

“You are. I know because I felt the same way when I saw you cuddled up in a booth with Brittzy.”

I blinked at that, letting it sink in.

Then, I laughed.

“You’ve got to be fucking joking me. So, what, you just found the first girl who’d let you grope her and took her to the VIP booth, hoping I’d see?”

His jaw locked, but he didn’t answer.

“Wow.” I laughed again, shaking my head and pushing the button for the elevator. “Real nice, Tanev.”

“Goddamnit, woman.” He snatched my bag so fast I couldn’t register it, and then his hands were on me, sweeping up to cradle my face as he backed me into the nearest wall. I gasped when we slammed into it, heart racing at the mixture of anger and passion ignited in his golden-green eyes.

“I don’t want to do this,” he choked, Adam’s apple bobbing hard with the admission. “I don’t want to play these fucking games with you. I don’t want to be in pain when I see you with one of my teammates because I don’t have the assurance that you’re mine, and I don’t want to try to make you jealous with some random fucking girl I don’t even know. This isn’t who I am, but it’s who you make me because I’m fucking crazy for you.”

My insides melted to mush at those words, at the sight of this confident, powerful man so raw and exposed.

All for me.

It was sick what that did to me, how my thighs clenched together and my pulse picked up a notch.

The last bit of my good sense hanging on was screaming as loud as it could for me to remember what I’d just been feeling in the car ride home, to remind myself who I was playing with here. But the screams were like the buzz of a fly — annoying, and then something I could ignore altogether because my heart was humming so much louder.

Vince read right through me, something shifting in him, too.

I didn’t mean to do it, but I didn’t have a choice.

It was a green light.

His forehead met mine on a sigh, one hand sliding to palm my throat, while the other ran the length of my body and hooked my hip.

“I thought I could be patient,” he said, his breath warm on my lips. “I thought I could wait it out, wait you out, but I can’t.”

He pulled back, but held me close to him as his fingers splayed over my neck. He lifted that hand until his thumb could run the length of my bottom lip, and I just stood there and let him touch me, trying not to black out from the rush of adrenaline surging through me.

The elevator dinged, the doors opening, my last chance to escape.

I let them close.

Vince’s eyes smoldered when I didn’t smart mouth him, when I didn’t shove him away, when I didn’t bolt for that elevator. His breath was as shallow as mine, and I focused on that hollow point in his throat as he unhooked my hip.