Chapter 17: Did You Love Him?

ELLIE

"Stop it." I moved away before I lost control, passing by him, feeling my legs weak and fully aware that my panties were soaked.

"Oh, Ellie, let's see how long you can keep fighting what your body wants." Hearing him say my name was the final straw.

"I told you to stop that."

I left him alone and retreated to the laundry room. I couldn’t think straight with him so close. Damn it! He had barely touched me, and I was already coming undone. I tried to calm my breathing. You can’t do this, Ellie, no matter how much you want to. This wouldn’t end well.

I stared at the dryer, praying for it to finish his clothes soon. I tried not to think about the fact that he was still out there in my living room. He must think I’m hiding. Well, that’s exactly what I’m doing. It seemed like I couldn’t trust my own reasoning when I was near him.

After what felt like an eternity, the dryer finished, and I grabbed his clothes and returned to the living room. Thankfully, the storm had stopped. He was sitting on the sofa, fiddling with his phone.

"Here." I said, placing the clothes on the sofa. He stood up, grabbing his clothes, and took a step toward me, making me back away.

"You didn’t have to hide, Ellie. I’m not going to attack you… unless you ask me to. Or maybe you hid because you don’t trust yourself?"

"I was just waiting for your clothes to dry. Now you can go."

"You lost the bet; you know what that means, right?"

"You’re not being fair."

"Do you really want to talk about fairness?"

"You’re not going to leave me alone, are you?" He smirked mischievously before turning and heading to the bathroom. That was definitely a no.

I was sitting on the sofa when he returned minutes later, dressed in his clothes. Holding his beanie in one hand, he stopped in the middle of the living room.

"Why was your ex-boyfriend here?" he asked.

"What?"

"Why was he here? What did he want?"

"That’s none of your business."

"You could use that excuse if you hadn’t jumped on me last night. Answer me, Brown."

"I don’t owe you any explanations, Morgan." He sighed.

"I’ll send you the address of my apartment," he said after a moment of silence.

"What? Why?"

"For when you stop resisting and decide to do what your body is begging for. I’ll be waiting, Ellie. You just need to knock."

"You’re crazy."

"Don’t worry, I want this as much as you do." He turned, walking toward the door. "Don’t make me wait too long, Miss Brown," he said before turning the knob and leaving.

*

Anna was slack-jawed after I finished telling her everything that had happened up until this morning. It was past six in the evening. We met at a bar near her apartment after I called and asked her to meet me so I could unload everything. At least now I didn’t feel like my head was going to explode.

"The most unbelievable part of all this is that you only gave in because you wanted to push Todd away. That doesn’t make any sense!" she said after taking another sip of her beer.

"I didn’t plan it." I took a long sip of wine from my glass. It was cold, and we were bundled up in heavy coats and scarves, sitting at a table in a corner at the back of the bar.

"Don’t try to pretend with me. We both know he’s right—you want this just as much as he does."

"That doesn’t matter."

"What do you mean it doesn’t matter? You just said he might not be as much of a bastard as you thought, so why shouldn’t you two sleep together?"

"Because I need more."

"More? It’s just sex, Ellie. Stop trying to complicate things."

"I don’t want to feel used. We’ve talked about this."

"Fine, then you two should talk about it. Make things clear before it happens. And there’s no reason to feel used—it would just be consensual sex between two adults. Sometimes it doesn’t need to be more than that."

"I can’t believe you’re trying to convince me to do this."

"Maybe he’s the perfect bastard for you. That reminds me, there’s something Zoe mentioned that I need to tell you, but only she can explain it better."

"What?"

"Apparently, Mr. Morgan had a fiancée." What? Morgan had a fiancée?

"A fiancée?" I asked, incredulous.

"Yeah, it seems like it ended just before the wedding was supposed to happen." God! He was going to get married? Nothing could have surprised me more.

"Why?"

"That I don’t know. But Zoe managed to get Bennett to admit that his brother needed a lot of time to recover. Apparently, he loved her and was in a dark place after that."

"That sounds awful… That must be why he didn’t want to talk about it. Now I feel like a complete idiot." Maybe I had been the one acting like a jerk this whole time.

"Don’t start thinking he’s just some poor victim and that you’re the terrible villain in this story. Everyone goes through tough situations. Don’t forget the rumors about what he was up to in London; he’s no angel."

"Okay, Anna. It’s not like I’m going to run to his apartment to comfort him."

"But you should."

"Anna!"

"After what you told me about how he makes you feel, I don’t know why you’re fighting this so much. Any woman in your place would have invited him in, or before that, screwed him in the car or the restaurant bathroom."

"You’re forgetting that he’s only doing this because I said no, and now he needs to make me give in. It’s just a game to him."

"Screw that! You want to sleep with him, so do it! It doesn’t matter who said yes in the end. I don’t know why you two are making this so complicated."

"You don’t want me to use you and Will as an example, do you?"

"Okay, I’ll let you decide what you’re going to do."

I was frustrated and confused. I wanted him, that much was clear. But I knew it wouldn’t be smart to get involved with him. It was also clear that Mr. Morgan just wanted to sleep with me. And that was exactly what I had been trying to avoid for some time—sleeping with someone without a real connection. But repeating that a million times wasn’t enough to make my body understand that I shouldn’t want him and react to him.

What I wanted was something real, and if I decided to give in to my desire, I’d have to make an exception for something purely physical. But if he wasn’t as much of a jerk as I’d thought, maybe I wouldn’t be going back on my word about not getting involved with an asshole ever again. Maybe I should just enjoy it and admit that he made me feel things I hadn’t felt in a long time. I couldn’t believe I was actually considering this.

"Don’t look now, but your perfect bastard just walked in," Anna said, snapping me back to reality.