“What new favor?”
Rip rubbed his face again, shaking his head as he did. “Your other one didn’t count. Pick something new.”
Eh…what?
He must have read the question on my face because Ripley muttered, “Luna, the other one doesn’t count. Ask for something else.”
A memory of Rip coming to stand behind me, of telling my cousin to shut up, filled my brain. The relief of it could still fill my mouth. But I could never take advantage of him. I would never want to in the first place. “Rip, I never wanted the favor. You don’t owe me anything.”
The handsome, stunning man let his hands drop.
“I don’t need a new favor. You did more than I could have asked for. That was what I wanted.”
He gave me that laser-like stare that I loved and hated at the same time. “I don’t care,” he tried to tell me in thatwe’re not talking about this anymorevoice.
“Rip—”
His shot me thatLuna is an idiotlook again. “It doesn’t count.”
“But I don’t want anything else.”
“And I don’t wanna owe you shit, Luna,” he insisted, watching me closely. “Something else, all right? You can come up with something.”
I opened my mouth but felt my eyes narrow on their own. “Ripley, I don’t want you to owe me anything. It was one thing I said for you. That’s all.”
That hand of his went up to tug at the collar of his compression shirt, showing me the skull there. His breath was deep. “I’m telling you how it’s gonna be. Pick something else. Me going with you to that funeral isn’t gonna be it.” He pinned me with a look that almost might have taken my breath away. “That was nothing. Understand me?”
Of course he thought it was nothing. He was the one who didn’t understand. “It wasn’t nothing to me,” I told him quietly.
My boss, this man standing in front of me, didn’t say a word. He didn’t move. He didn’t twitch. He didn’t flinch.
He didn’t argue.
He just looked at me.
And all I could do was give him a flimsy smile back to show him that it had been more than enough. I didn’t want him to feel like he owed me. He didn’t.
“It doesn’t count, Luna. Not today, not tomorrow. Pick something else or I will. You got me?” he asked me in that calm, cool, steady voice, piercing me with that unflinching gaze.
It was my turn to stare. My turn to watch him. Because I knew that tone and that voice and what it meant.
I might let people get away with a whole lot of things sometimes, but this wasn’t someone with an attitude problem calling me a bitch.
This was my boss feeling indebted to me when he had no reason to. When I didn’t want him to.
But all I could get out was his name before something moved across that hard face.
I definitely couldn’t miss the way his chest expanded as he settled his irises on me mercilessly. “I pay back my debts, and what we did doesn’t count.” He tipped his chin up and started to turn away from me. Done. He was already done with me. “Go home.”
I stood there for a moment and watched as he moved toward the chests, pulling a rag out of his pocket to wipe his hands as he did.
I sighed.
“Night, Luna,” he called out over his shoulder, just a hint louder than a normal speaking voice.
“Night, Rip,” I replied, shaking my own freaking head.
What was goingonwith him?
