“And how exactly did you want to thank me?” I pressed because it had looked an awful lot like she was leaning in to kiss me, and the thought of that fucking horrified me.
Me and Megan? Impossible.
She grinned, pretending that I’d misinterpreted her gesture, but I wasn’t stupid. I was a sharp man, and I definitely had experience with women. I noticed when they tried to seduce me, and sometimes I allowed myself to be seduced, but only if and when I chose and always with the goal of getting what I wanted.
If Megan had been a regular woman, I probably would have been seducing her myself.
But even though I knew plenty of ways to get a woman excited, to teaseher or flatter her or get around her sense of modesty, I never would have tried any of them on her. Touching her at all was inconceivable for me.
“I get you, you know…” I gave her a mysterious smile because I had worked out what was going on in her head.
I stared into her eyes without a shred of uncertainty, and she frowned, showing vulnerability for the first time.
So she wanted to play with me? Well, if I were going to play, I would play dirty.
“You know that I’d never touch you, which is why you like teasing me,” I whispered, my voice rough and stern. The voice of a man who wouldn’t get fucked up over a pretty face and body, not even one as hot as hers.
Megan retreated but still managed to maintain a confident pose.
I gave her a wicked grin. She was never going to win against someone like me. She needed to accept reality.
“I was going to kiss you on the cheek. You know, there do exist some simple, sincere gestures with which one can convey gratitude to another person,” she explained, pausing for effect. “Miller,” she finished, opening her door.
I watched her get out of my car and walk toward the apartment where she lived with her family, a sassy smile on her face.
I let my head fall back against the seat and scrubbed a hand over my face. I knew so much about her, things I would have preferred not to remember.
Sighing, I tried to convince myself that it had just been a ride home. A very ordinary ride home. And yet, I still had to promise myself that I was going to stay away from her the way I had done for the last few years.
I didn’t want to establish any kind of relationship with her: We weren’t friends. We weren’t acquaintances. We were nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing.
I was just about to leave when my cell phone buzzed—an incoming call. I raised my hips up slightly to pull the phone out of my jeans and looked at the display.
Tinkerbell.
That was what I’d saved her number under when, in my usual peremptorystyle, I’d gotten her number out of Logan’s phone. I wanted to arrange a conversation before she’d left Detroit.
An unexpected smile made my lips curve. For a moment, I imagined that she’d forgotten what I’d done to her. But, at the same time, I had to hope that wasn’t the case because remembering me had to mean remembering the shit I pulled on Halloween. I would rather she had a void where I was supposed to be than have her associate me with a monster or a pervert, as she had so often called me.
I grew serious again, and something powerful seemed to sharply squeeze my chest.
My brother and sister should have been the only people who existed for me, no one else.
I was already too broken, destroyed, and consumed. I couldn’t yoke myself to anyone else, especially not a woman.
I couldn’t let her suffer or be miserable. I was too fragile, and romantic relationships were for winners. Not people like me who had already been defeated by life.
For people like me whose personal conception of love was incomprehensible to most, women were nothing but trouble. They were a spectacle that I preferred to enjoy intensely but fleetingly and only between the sheets.
My phone continued to ring.
I should have just rejected the call, but instead my thumb hovered over the display, uncertain.
Selene had been the best indulgence I had ever allowed myself to have, but I was positive that it wouldn’t work between us in the long run. That was why I’d done everything I could to drive her away.
I’d worked hard to make her hate me so it would be easier for her to move on, but then the accident happened.
The more I thought about her, the more painful that pinch in my chest became.
