“You didn’t do anything,” she said.
“That doesn’t mean I’m not capable of doing some very bad things.” His eyes were hot, so hot they burned. And she should move away from him, but she wasn’t.
Heaven help her, she wasn’t.
She tried to swallow, but her mouth was so dry her tongue was frozen in place. “Is that a warning? Or a threat?”
“Definitely a warning. For now.” He turned away from her and faced the window. “If you listen to it, it’ll never have to be a threat.”
“Why?”
What she felt right now was a strange kind of emotion. It wasn’t anger; it wasn’t even fear. It was just a strange kind of resolve. Her brothers already treated her like a child who didn’t know her own mind—she wasn’t about to let this man do the same thing. Let him issue warnings as if she didn’t understand exactly who she was and what she wanted.
She might not know who he was. But she damn well knew who she was.
And she hadn’t even done anything. Maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she never would.
But maybe she wanted to, and if she did, the consequences would be on her. It wouldn’t be for anyone else to decide.
Least of all this man. This stranger.
“Little girl,” he said, his voice dripping with disdain. “If you have to ask why, then you definitely need to take a step back.”
Little girl.
No. She wouldn’t have this man talk down to her. She had it all over her life, from well-meaning people who loved her. People whose opinions she valued. She wasn’t going to let him tell her who she was or what she wanted. To tell her what she could handle.
She didn’t step back. She stepped forward.
“I have a feeling you think you’re a singular specimen, Levi Tucker. You, with your stab wound and your rough edges.” Her heart was thundering, her hands shaking, but she wasn’t going to step away. She wasn’t going to do what he wanted or expected. “You’re not. You’re just like every other man I’ve ever come into contact with. You think you know more than me simply because you’re older, or maybe because you have a—apenis.”
She despised herself for her stutter, but as tough as she was trying to be, she couldn’t utter that word a foot away from a man. Not effortlessly. She sucked in a sharp breath. “I’m not exactly sure what gives men such an unearned sense of power. But whatever the reason, you think it’s acceptable to talk down to me. Without acknowledging the fact that I have navigated some incredibly difficult waters. They would be difficult foranyone, much less someone my age. I’m a lot harder and more filled with resolve than most people will ever be. I don’t do warnings or threats.Youmight do well to remember that.”
He reached out, the move lightning-fast, and grabbed hold of her wrist. His grip was strong, his hands rough. “And I don’t take lectures from prim little misses in pencil skirts. Maybe you’d do well to remember that.”
Lightning crackled between them, at the source of his touch, but all around them, too. She was so angry at him. And judging by the fire in his eyes, he was mad at her, too.
She arched forward, and he held her fast, his eyes never leaving hers.
“Do they offer a lot?” she asked. “Prim little misses, I mean. To lecture you?”
“I can’t say any of them have ever been able to bring themselves to get this close to me.”
She reached out, flexing her fingers, then curled them into a fist, before resting her fingers flat onto his chest. She could feel his heartbeat raging beneath her hand. She could feel the rhythm echoed in her own labored breathing.
This was insane. She’d never...evertouched a man like this before. She’d never wanted to. And she didn’t know what kind of crazy had taken over her body, or her mind, right then.
She only knew that she wanted to keep touching him. That she liked the way it felt to have him holding tightly to her wrist.
That she relished the feeling of his heartbeat against her skin.
He smelled good. Like the pine trees and the mountain air, and she wondered if he’d been outside before she’d come over.
A man who couldn’t be contained by walls. Not now.
And her literal job was to create a beautiful new cage for him.
She suddenly felt the urge to strip him of everything. All his confines. All his clothes. To make him free.
