Then why can’t you love me? Why can’t you love a man like me?
He wanted desperately to ask her, but the answer was obvious. Love just . . . was. There was no explanation for it, no way to rationalize it, and no way to pick the perfect partner and feel those kinds of emotions. He was starting to understand that love wasn’t a choice, it just happened. He definitely never thought it would happen to him.
“I think you owe Liam an apology,” Randi remarked matter-of-factly. “He was being charming and polite.”
“He wasn’t charming.” Evan’s response was disgruntled. “He wants to get you naked.”
“How would you know?” she asked.
“Because I want the same damn thing. I recognize the look, but he’s not nearly as pathetically desperate as I am for that right now.” He stood and grasped her around the waist. “I want it every time I see you or hear your voice. I want it when you smile at me. I want it every fucking minute of the day. If I’m not with you, I want to be.” His breathing labored, he added, “I. Need. You.”
Evan shuddered as Randi wrapped her arms around his neck and placed her soft cheek against his slightly whiskered jaw. “I need you, too. I’m not interested in Liam, Evan.” She sniffed and then asked him quietly, “Is this the alcohol talking? I can smell it. Have you been drinking?”
“Two drinks. I’m not drunk, Randi. I’m emotional, something that never happens to me.”
“Jealous?” she questioned.
“Yes,” he answered promptly, honestly. “I don’t want any man touching you except me.”
“You’re leaving early in the morning. We can’t be this intense right now,” Randi warned him in a husky voice.
“Right now is what we have,” Evan said angrily, unable to process the thought of leaving her side, much less putting any more distance between the two of them. He’d lose it entirely.
He watched as the gold in her beautiful eyes seemed to erupt into tiny, sparkling particles. She gazed up at him with a look of longing that made Evan feel like he’d been punched in the gut.
“Then fuck me, Evan. Here. Now. One last time,” she begged breathlessly. “I know we can’t have a relationship, but you’re right. We have right now. I’ve learned that sometimes that’s all a person will ever have.”
He wanted forever, but he needed her so desperately that he’d figure that all out later. He looked around quickly, realizing they were in a powder room, and the door beyond probably led to the toilets. He knew from previous visits that there were plenty of restrooms at the Center, but this was obviously one that Grady had redone to be nicer, plusher.
There were small, elegant chairs lined in front of a long line of mirrors, probably so women could do whatever it was that women did to freshen up.
Too far gone to really care where they were, he reached behind her and double-checked the lock on the door to make sure it was secure, and then he stalked her. “It’s going to end up hard and fast, Randi. Possibly even rough. I don’t have even an ounce of control right now when it comes to you,” he warned her in a dangerous voice.
“I don’t care,” she answered emphatically, letting him pin her against the makeup counter.
Evan removed his tuxedo jacket roughly, yanking it from his body and turning it inside out in his haste to get it off him so he had more freedom of movement. He needed his body to be as unrestrained as his mind was at the moment.
He dropped the jacket on the floor, feeling relieved once it was gone. His gut tightened and his cock pulsated with the need to be inside Randi as he looked down at her vulnerable expression.
“Are you scared?” he asked gruffly.
She shook her head. “No. Not of you. But I’m afraid of the way I feel.”
Her statement made a million questions flitter through Evan’s mind.
How do you feel?
Do you feel like you’re losing your sanity as much as I do?
How do you expect me to leave when I want more than anything to stay?
All of those unanswered questions fled from his brain as Randi tore off his bow tie and tugged hard at his shirt, scattering buttons onto the carpeted floor.
When she touched his bare skin, he forgot about them completely as the feral, carnal emotions he’d been experiencing became his elemental focus.
When Randi curled a hand behind his neck and tugged his mouth down to hers, Evan Sinclair, master of the art of control, finally lost it completely.
CHAPTER 19
If Randi wasn’t so lost, she might have pondered that if she looked back on this night later, she’d admit that it was Evan’s vulnerability that had finally gotten to her.
His anger, the fear and pain she could see in his expression, and his willingness to expose himself tore at her heart. She could see his need in those beautiful eyes of his, and the war he was waging with his emotions was her undoing.
I love him.
There was no uncertainty, no hesitation anymore. She wanted Evan Sinclair and all of his unguarded fierceness more than she needed the oxygen she breathed.
He ravaged her mouth like she was the only woman he ever wanted to kiss, but she needed so much more. She wanted to climb inside him until she couldn’t get any closer to him.
Need slithered inside her belly, moving straight to her core, as she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on for dear life.
“Evan, please,” she begged as his mouth left hers, trailing a rough path with his tongue down the sensitive skin of her neck. “Fuck me.”
All her defenses were stripped away. She wanted and needed him.