Rising from the Ashes by Jessica Prince Page B

Put it out there on a silver damn platter for you?”
    Jeremy crossed his arms over his chest and stood his ground. “You know exactly what you have to do.”
    “Damn it, Jeremy! Have sex with me!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, not caring that my neighbors were still on their porches, enjoying the view of Jeremy.
    “Say we’re a couple.”
    “Oh!” I turned and stomped off toward my house. “Kiss my ass!” I shouted over my shoulder.
    “I’d do that too—if you’d just admit we’re together!” he called after me.
    I flipped him the bird and slammed the door before he could say anything else.

    Two weeks.
    Two. Fucking. Weeks.
    That was how long I’d been making Savannah suffer, but I was starting to think I was the only one suffering.
    If my dick hadn’t hated me before, it was a sure thing now after two weeks of self-induced agony. I was crazy!
    That damn woman was going to drive me completely batshit crazy. There was no way in hell I would ever admit it to her, but I’d come so close to just caving many times. If I had to jack off one more time, I was scared I might actually go blind. Every time I was around her, my cock turned into a friggin’ heat-seeking missile pointed right in her direction.
    I had been determined before, but she’d turned this into a fucking war. I was going to break her like a wild horse if it was the last thing I did.
    I headed to my truck, muttering curses about Savannah the entire way. When I climbed in, I had to adjust the ever-present hard on in my pants to get comfortable enough to drive. If any of the guys knew the torture I was putting myself through, they’d never let me hear the end of it.
    If the blood loss to my brain—because it was all stored in my dick—didn’t kill me, I knew Savannah was going to be the death of me. But damn was it going to be sweet when I finally had her.
    Even after all these years, I remembered almost everything of our time together. For how hard we fought each other, we loved twice that. She was playing hard to get, but no one on Earth could convince me that Savvy didn’t still want me.
    And all the pain and suffering I was going through was going to be so worth it once I had her. I just had to stick to my guns. I already had a very creative, very detailed list of how she could make up all my current physical pain up to me.

    I was starting to wonder if I could get away with killing Jeremy and using temporary insanity as my defense. I felt that all the sexual frustration he was intentionally causing was sending me over the deep end. The women in that jury would have to understand my dilemma when they saw a picture of Jeremy without his shirt on.
    “Savannah? Are you listening?”
    For the past few weeks, my brain had been on one channel, and all that channel played was Jeremy Matthews, twenty-four/seven. I was even dreaming of the bastard every night.
    I looked up to see Ben standing in the doorway of my office. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
    Ben gave a little chuckle before tucking his hands in the pockets of his designer slacks as he leaned against the doorframe. “Where’s your mind been the past few days?”
    Nowhere I want to admit to you . “I don’t know. I guess I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately. But don’t worry, I won’t let it affect my work.”
    Embarrassment washed over me at the idea that I’d been so transparent to someone who didn’t even know me that well. Just because I didn’t need my job financially didn’t mean I didn’t want it. I liked what I did and who I worked with, so I always tried my hardest not to let me personal life bleed into my professional life.
    Ben pushed off the wall and made himself comfortable in the only other chair in my office. “I’m not worried about your work. I’m more concerned about you. You’ve been…on edge for several days now.”
    I could tell by the twitch at the corner of his mouth that he’d wanted to phrase that statement very differently. “You