I clamped my knees together and tensed my legs, forcing them to stay shut. What was wrong with me? How could I possibly let him make me feel like this? I started sweating. Everyone around the table was involved in some sort of discussion about the publishing world and I was trying desperately not to have an orgasm.

That’s when the tips of his fingers reached higher and slid over the bottom of my panties. The moment his fingers felt the state of the material, his head snapped in my direction. “Lex…”

I jumped up, slamming my bag down on the table and tried to flatten my skirt down at the same time. “Excuse me,” I stammered, “I have to use the restroom.”

“I’ll walk you,” James said.

“No. You stay here,” I whisper-yelled.

He leaned in close to me. The smell of his shirt made my head spin. “No chance. You’ll climb out the bathroom window before you let me talk to you,” he murmured.

“Stay here. Please,” I hissed, walking away from him.

I shifted through the crowds of people at the bar, everyone waiting patiently for a table for dinner in the back, just like us. But even though the place was packed with people, I still felt him right behind me. The memories of us together pressed against my back like a living, breathing thing. From the weight of his body on mine to the way his hands roamed every inch of my body, had me tripping over my own feet. My face flushed from the images in my head. Shivers and sparks of heat slowly crawled up my spine as I tried to move faster through the sea of bodies.

“Lex,” he whispered as I stepped out of the throng of people and into a dimly lit hallway, hesitating briefly. A lone person stood at the end talking in low murmurs into her cell phone. She rolled her eyes and faced the wall when she saw me, not once stopping her conversation. Ignoring her, I reached for the handle of the bathroom door.

“Lex. You can’t hide from me in there. I’ll just follow you in,” his voice said behind me.

I forced myself not to look in the shadows behind me as I swung the door open and stepped inside. But his presence seemed to pulse around me, edging closer, surrounding me. If I wasn’t careful, it would consume me.

“Lex, turn around,” he said, tugging at my waist. But I pulled away and walked to the sink, putting my hands down flat against the cool tile of the counter.

“Get out. I need to pee and get back to my date,” I said, lifting my eyes to the mirror to meet his.

He reached for the doorknob and just when I thought he was going to pull it open to leave, he turned the lock instead. A bolt of electric heat surged through my body.

“You are the biggest Alpha-hole in the world. Just leave me alone,” I said a little breathlessly.

His eyebrows arched up comically. “Alpha-hole?”

“What do you want, Holt?” I asked, glaring at his reflection.

He took a step closer and slowly reached up and swept my hair over my shoulder, exposing my neck. His gaze roamed over my skin; I watched it in the mirror as it traveled over me slowly. My hands clenched into fists. Every muscle in my body tensed with hurt, with anger, but most of all, with pathetic goddamn stupid hope.

His lips parted slightly and touched down along the curve of my neck. They tenderly grazed up to right under my ear, making me shudder. “I missed you.”

I clenched my fists tighter, trying desperately to remain calm and composed, but the increasing rise and fall of my chest was every indication I was not. “I’m on a date, Holt.”

“Leave with me,” he whispered into my ear.

“Are you stupid? Are you deaf? Blind?” I ground out. “I haven’t seen you in a month. You come back for a little visit and what? You’re horny? You see me and bam; you think I’ll just fuck you again. No, Holt.” I shoved my shoulder back, trying to knock him away, but he reached around me, putting his hands on the counter on both sides of me and trapping me between his hard, muscular chest and the sink.

I hung my head down and shook it back and forth, “Just let me move on, James. What we had was so…amazing. I will always remember the way you made me feel.” I tilted my face up to look at his reflection again. “But let’s leave it there, as a good memory.”

His eyes darkened. “Is that what you really want? Tell me what you really want, Lex.”

I swallowed hard and stared at him—my heart pounded in my chest hard and fast.

“Say it,” he whispered. “Just say it. Say what you want.”

A wave of tears stung at my eyes but I fought them back. “I can’t.”

“Why?” he asked, leaning his body gently against mine. The heat of him made a small gasp escape my lips and I needed to look away for a moment to hide from the intensity of it.

He pressed harder against my back.

A wave of iciness crept up the front of my body and I was suddenly struggling to breathe. Anger exploded red-hot in my brain. My muscles quivered and my pulse sped. “You really wanna know why, you big dick? Because I don’t want to ever feel that gut wrenching feeling again when you walk away. I don’t want to look in your eyes and see you staring back at me with that empty look because you don’t want me.” I choked on my words and my voice shook. “Just go back to California. Our three weeks is over. Find someone else to play with.”

He pressed harder into me. What the hell? Now it was starting to get uncomfortable. I was getting ready to hit him.

“Now you’re going to listen to me. You don’t have any clue how I feel or what’s going on in my head. You never did.” He took a deep breath and grabbed my chin to tilt my head up to look at him. It wasn’t hard, he was gentle, but the intensity of his eyes made a sob rip out of my chest. I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut. I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. He left me. He hadn’t wanted me.

“I left because I was angry. You lied to me. I wanted to talk to you…and I called. I called again and again, and I texted. I needed to go to California for my father. And when I got there I thought I would just let you go, let you go without ever telling you how I really felt.” His breathing faltered and the pressure of his hands tightened around me. “But… I woke up the first morning without you and I couldn’t breathe. The thought of you not being there, me not able to reach out and touch you—hurt.”

Good. I was glad it hurt. “You’ve been gone for a month. I’m sure you got over it,” I snapped.

“No. See, Lex, that’s the thing. I thought I could, you know. I thought it would be like every other relationship I had…forgettable. But the next morning when I woke up I grabbed for you, and when I realized the bed was still empty, it hurt even more.”

I pressed my hand to my chest to try to stop it from cracking open.

“I told you I never felt it before with anyone. I never knew if I could. Love? I didn’t know what it was, Lex.” Then suddenly his arms dropped and he stepped back. The places where his hands were still felt a ghost of his touch and made me swallow hard.

“Love was just a confusing, empty word to me,” he shrugged, “until you made it mean something.”

I covered my hands over my mouth as my skin tingled from head to toe.

“I didn't even have a choice about falling in love with you. You walked down a hotel hallway and that was the first time I remember ever feeling anything. It was the first time I ever felt—alive inside.”

“And then you found out I lied to you—” I said, spinning to face him.

“I lied to you too,” his voice was low, dark. Harsh.

I looked away quickly—couldn’t raise my eyes to meet his. I didn’t want to get hurt. What could he have lied to me about?

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a crumpled up piece of paper. I tried to focus on it, but it blurred around the tears that fought to break free.

“This is your list,” he whispered hoarsely, holding out the paper between us. The walls instantly felt like they were closing in on me. Closer and closer, they seemed to move. “Number ten,” he whispered, “I did it. Fuck, Lexa, it was the first thing I did on your list.”