I don’t need vegetables. I need donuts. Karla’s, preferably, but at this point I’ll take Krispy Kreme, a gas station bear claw, or honestly just a bag of sugar and a spoon.
Bran is managing to keep himself busy—cleaning guns, reorganizing the pantry, checking the doors like a tiger in the zoo—but even when he’s busy, he’swatching. His gaze tracks me constantly, as if me crossing the room to refill my water is a tactical maneuver he has to assess.
I can’t make a move without the awareness of his attention stalking me.
“Dramatic much?” he replies now.
“Yes,” I say. “I contain multitudes of personalities, one of which is drama queen.”
I flop sideways on the couch, legs hanging over the armrest, and stare at the muted TV. Some Hallmark Christmas movie plays silently, all fake snow and big-city-girl-returns-home vibes. I read the captions until my eyes cross.
I can’t take this.
I bolt upright, energy buzzing under my skin like a bad caffeine crash. “I need something to keep me occupied,” I announce, pacing toward the kitchen.
His gaze flickers over me as I approach, tracing my legs in their leggings and pausing on the swell of my breasts beneath my sweater before finally settling on my face.
That look—a sweep down, a deliberate rise back up—sets off every nerve ending I have. Then his shoulder lifts in a shrug, likeI’m no help, sorry.
It’s the last straw.
I’m tired of him watching me with those relentless eyes. Tired of him acting like nothing happened, like he didn’t have his fingers inside me while I clung to him and begged.
Looking, watching, seeing. It makes me uncomfortable, puts me on edge, makes my skin itch more than this stupid scratch does. I feel like a rabbit in a snare with a wolf circling.
He needs to bite or find something else to prey on.
“Stop looking at me!” I burst out. “You’re always doing that—watching. Looking at me.”
Bran’s left eyebrow arches, just a fraction. With painstaking slowness, he sets the knife down and dries his hands on a dish towel, movements smooth and unhurried, like he’s giving me time to reconsider.
I don’t.
“What’s the matter, Tallulah?” he asks. His voice is calm, but there’s a thread under it, low and dangerous. “Afraid I’ll see something you don’t want me to see?”
He moves around the counter to stand in front of me—far too close—and suddenly he’s all I can see, all I canfeel.
His heat.
His bulk.
His presence.
The cabin shrinks around him. Around us.
I cross my arms over my chest, shielding myself with attitude. “You’re looking at me like you want…”
“Want what?” His voice is velvet with rough undertones, making every nerve stand on end.
He reaches up and tucks a single piece of hair behind my ear, his fingers ghosting over my skin. The touch is barely there, but it sends a wave of something like electricity over the exposed area, down my neck, into my chest.
I swallow and fix my gaze on the wall of his chest in front of me. His T-shirt is stretched over muscle, warm and solid and entirely too appealing.
His touch shouldn’t make my heart beat faster.
It does, though.
And god, do I hate him for it.
