His eyes flicker down to my hands, and he takes a deep breath. “Yeah. Please.”
Even his voice is enough to make my insides clench and quiver. I should really just tell him to stop doing what he’s doing. I don’t know why I haven’t.
Turning away, I fill his glass as close to the brim as possible. All so he won’t have the excuse to ask again.
Sliding him the full glass, I no longer have a reason to stick around. Yet, suddenly, my boots feel heavy. Keeping me in place, my eyes flicker over him. When he takes a drink, he stares. “What?”
He doesn’t flinch at the bite behind the word, relaxing instead.
Pressing his lips together, the words don’t immediately come. Is he thinking about what to say? What do we have to talk about?
Outside of the complicated feelings I’m hiding, of course.
“I think we should spar again.” Offering up the suggestion, he smiles meekly. “I’ll let you kick my ass and get everything out of your system.”
“Let you—” Realizing he’s baiting me, I scowl and turn from him. “No thanks.”
If he thinks this anger I’m desperately clinging onto can be released by a punch or two, he’s wrong. There’s only one way I’m releasing anything, and it won’t be with my fists.
“Raven.” Purring my name, he sighs when I give him my back so he can’t see the damning heat that tries to creep up my throat. “If you don’t want to fight, then how about we talk? Just a few words. You can get on my bike, and we can hit the town.”
My heart flutters, much to my dismay. I don’t ever leave the clubhouse outside of my strolls, but even those are stillsurrounded by pines. No one has offered to take me in a long time.
Realizing that I’m starting to want to say yes, I abandon the bar. I don’t need to get out of here. I just need to get away from him before I do something reckless. The bar can be self-serve for all I care.
“No thanks.” Answering him with a call over my shoulder so he can’t see my face betraying me, my stomach clenches at the sound of a stool scraping.
Jinx has followed me around for days now, so I should be used to it by now. However, he’s never tried to be obvious about it. He’d wait for me to disappear first, then pop up like it was pure chance.
Today, he’s wasted no time catching up.
“Stop following me.” Clenching my hands, I consider giving him what he deserves. I’ll knock him flat on his ass and remind him that we’re not friends. We’re notanything. We’re oil and water, fire and gunpowder—nothing good comes from us mixing.
“Raven…” Groaning my name, he follows me out of the bar, the silent air in the back hardly covering the chaos he brings with him. “Come on. You can’t keep this up.” He makes this frustrated huff, a sound that vibrates in my own chest, before the wide, safe space between us grows slimmer with one step at a time. “I get it, you hate me. But this… this is different than before. I want—”
Twisting on my heel, I come to a sudden stop, and he nearly topples straight into me. The nearness brings a prickling heat against my skin, and I try my best to ignore it. “You’re right. I do hate you,” I snap, the lie bitter on my tongue. “I hate that you can’t catch on. Jinx. This?” I slash my hand through the gap of space between us. “This shouldn’t be happening. You have what you want. What else is there? What in the hell do you want from me?”
There’s nothing worth giving him, and yet my poor, stupid heart is a wild thing trying to lunge from my chest and straight into his hands. A guy who doesn’t know what love is, even if it hits him in the face. Hell,Idon’t even know what love is.
I’ve spent weeks building walls, stone by stone, pretending I don’t feel the foundation crack every time he looks at me. All those days I ignored him, I only succeeded because he was still there, a constant, maddening presence. If he’d just left me alone… then maybe the lie would have become true. Instead, he became the thorn I couldn’t dislodge, the itch I couldn’t scratch, festering deeper every day.
Jinx stares, his gaze taking me in, eyes searching mine with furrowed brows. Can he see it? Can he see past the anger to the raw, terrifying need beneath? If he can, I’m screwed. This isn’t a fight I can win with my fists. This is uncharted, vulnerable territory, and every instinct screams at me to run.
He reaches for my face, his fingers aimed for my jaw, and I know, with a certainty that terrifies me, that he wants to kiss me. I can feel the intention like a physical pull, deep in my bones. I see it—the hunger in his eyes that’s been simmering for an eternity now, banked but never gone. And beneath it, something worse—a raw, bewildered longing that mirrors the ache in my own chest.
“You don’t get to do whatever you want.” I hiss the words, yanking back before his skin can meet mine. If he touches me, I’m lost. I’ve been dangling by a thread; his touch would be the shears.
The loss wounds him. A flinch, then he’s reaching for me again, reckless, careless of the danger I pose, of the shields I’m desperately trying to raise.
“Fuck, Raven. Take it then.” His voice is ragged, stripped bare. He grabs my hands—I could break his grip, I should—and presses my palms against the rough heat of his face. Hisskin is fever-warm, his stubble scraping my palms. The intimacy of it steals my breath. “Put me out of my misery. I can’t stay away without wondering what you’re doing. I can’t get near you without wanting—”
He chokes on the words, pinching his eyes shut as if in pain, and in that fractured moment, his misery is a perfect reflection of my own.
“I haven’t been able to get you out of my head. Every day doesn’t make it any easier. Fuck, it makes itworse.” Gritting his jaw, he growls out his frustrations, and it makes my stomach swoop and fill with a foreign sensation.Butterflies.
“It…” Heart thundering, I catch myself getting lost in those pained eyes. “It wasn’t supposed to mean anything. It was just…”
I can’t even make myself say it. The lie tastes wrong, making me swallow hard. He grunts and scowls, wanting nothing to do with it.
