“Is it that book?”
She didn’t even spare me a glance. “Isaidit’s none of your business.”
I eyed the paperback, doing a quick estimation of where she was in the story. “Where are you, chapter fifteen?”
Dropping her head back on her shoulders, she heaved a deep sigh toward the sky as if this conversation were draining every ounce of her will to live. “Twenty-two. And it’snone of your business.”
My lips twitched, knowing damn well that while this wasn’t what had sent her out here in the first place, she definitelywasfrustrated about it. “Keep reading. Chapter twenty-five is what you want.”
“You—” She caught herself—no doubt on the way to reaming me a new asshole—and narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re only saying this to irritate me, and it’s not going to work.”
“Whatever you need to tell yourself, trouble.”
“Where’s your kitten?” she asked. “Petting her is the only benefit to having you in my space.”
“I think you meanmyspace. This is my home, you know.”
“Believe me, you’ve made it very difficult to forget that I live in your backyard, Atlas.”
I wrapped the towel around my waist and sat on a lounge chair. Mostly to hide the fact that my cock twitched in my too-thin swim trunks, all thanks to the way my name sounded falling from her lips.
Why the hell did she affect me so damn much? And why couldn’t I stop it from happening?
“The kitten is inside. She drank herself into a sleep coma after all the milk I gave her.”
Sutton’s reaction was exactly as I’d expected. She widened her eyes briefly before narrowing them at me and pressed those gorgeous, full lips into a flat line. “It’s your funeral. But don’t come crying to me when you want help cleaning up cat shit on your twenty-thousand-dollar couch.”
“What if it’s on my bedroom rug? Would you help clean it up then?”
“No! I’m not going to help—” Her words cut off as she snapped her mouth shut and shook her head. “Since you don’t play football anymore, is this how you’ve chosen to spend your time? Goading people by being an asshole?”
“Not people…just you.”
“And what makes me so lucky?”
I leaned forward, bracing my elbows on my knees, and met her gaze. “When I piss you off, your eyes look exactly like they did when I made you come.”
Her mouth dropped open, portraying the same shock I felt that I let something so revealing slip. What in the ever-lovingfuckwas I doing? Those thoughts were relegated to the shower and the brief five minutes a day I’d finally allowed myself to think of her.
“I cannot believe you just said that to me.” Her tone was heavy with disbelief, but there was no denying the interest threaded through as well. “I came out here to?—”
“You came out here to get your mind off something,” I said, daring her to deny it because we both knew it wasn’t the damn book. “And judging by how much you’ve engaged in our argument, I’d say mission accomplished.”
She huffed out a breath, her gaze scrutinizing as she regarded me. “You actuallyarean asshole, aren’t you?”
I didn’t know why her thinking of me as nothing more than that rankled. But I could handle that. Especially since I’d accomplished what I’d set out to.
“Maybe so.” I darted my gaze over her face, taking in her expression. The concern and unease that had been written over every inch of her when she’d first walked out had been replaced by irritation at my hand. “But it got you to stop thinking about whatever made you come out here looking like that in the first place.”
The hard stare she’d been pinning me with softened, confusion and what looked a hell of a lot like gratitude sweeping over her features.Fuck. What I needed to be doing was reinforcing these walls between us, not tearing them down.
But I couldn’t seem to keep my head where Sutton was concerned.
She eviscerated every ounce of my best intentions, crushing them like dust under her shoe. And if I didn’t get my head in the game fast, I was going to have a fucking problem.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ATLAS
