Not that Selene was really doing that. Even if she’d tried to seduce me, she wouldn’t have been like the bold women I was used to. Still, all she had to do was lick her lips, and I was thinking of lewd scenarios.
I took a deep breath.
I needed to get a grip.
I disgusted myself, so obsessed over having a woman. I couldn’t have a relationship of any kind, let alone a romantic one, with a girl like her. Not because I didn’t want it but because all my issues would only lead to me dragging her into my fucked-up life, and that wasn’t the future I wanted for her. I didn’t want her to have a future full of psychologists, medication, and mental disorders. I didn’t want her to have to witness my nightmares or my angry outbursts or fall victim to my inability to love. Love was nothing but a curse to me—a painful memory, a noxious dependency. An evil I was fleeing from.
If Selene tried to form an actual bond with me, I would have to make her understand that I wasn’t fit for her at all.
“Who wants to toast some marshmallows over the fire?” Logan handed me two sticks with sharpened ends, assuming I’d say yes. I cocked an eyebrow as I looked at the sticks and then back at his face.
“And who said I wanted to, exactly?” I grumbled in my usual truculent fashion, but Logan just smiled and insisted.
“You already missed lunch. Just take them and don’t be a dick about it,” he said.
I wanted to take exception to being called a dick, but I didn’t want to get angry, which is what would have happened if I’d responded to him. Instead, I just glared at him as I snatched the damn sticks and passed them directly to Selene.
Babygirl started, probably still nervous at how close I was to her. She looked from the hand I had extended toward her up to my eyes, and then, after a moment of hesitation, she took the sticks.
“Thanks,” she said awkwardly. I didn’t reply but only grabbed two more sticks for myself. I turned them over between my fingers and thought about how agitated I was by this whole situation.
I didn’t know what the fuck to do either.
I could have ignored her, tried to make it clear that she should stay away from me, but instead, I’d come on to her just a little while ago and now I was sitting right next to her. On top that, I wasn’t even pretending to be nice.
What, me be nice to a woman?
I was rarely nice to them even when they were suggesting a threesome or offering to realize any of my other perverted fantasies.
“Here.” Matt tossed the bag of marshmallows to Logan, and he pulled out a couple of them and skewered them on his stick. Chloe did the same, and then Logan held the bag out to me. I’d never been the biggest fan of marshmallows, but I didn’t complain and instead grabbed two, one to put on each of my sticks.
Selene did the same thing, moving with a very feminine delicacy. I watched her long fingers and perfectly groomed pink nails. I liked women’s hands, especially when they were so graceful like hers.
Under my watchful eye, she stretched her sticks out over the fire to toast the marshmallows and immediately made the mistake of getting too close to the fire. One of them went up in flames.
“Damn,” she said in an annoyed whisper, and I couldn’t help but smile. It made me feel tender toward her when she took on those awkward stances or turned red from fear someone might judge her.
Instinctively, I took her by the wrist to correct the way she held the stick with the still-unburnt marshmallow on it. She flinched and turned her face toward me while I kept my eyes locked on the fire.
“You’ve got to do it like this.” I held her wrist up in front of the flames to show her exactly how. Her smooth skin against my fingers sent a jolt of electricity up my arm, but I pushed that unsettling sensation down and remained blank-faced.
I hated feeling vulnerable with women. I never did it, except with her, and the whole thing made me nervous.
“Right above the coals is the perfect spot for toasting the marshmallow. No sudden bursts of flames to ruin the gummy texture,” I explained, and only then did I turn to look at her. I caught her staring at me so intently that she’d stopped blinking entirely.
She looked like she was under a spell, her ocean gaze alternating between my eyes and my lips, and fuck—I wanted to kiss her, if only to replace that goofy look on her face with the satiated one she wore with me and me alone.
“Fire’s over there,” I said softly, gesturing at the bonfire. Selene snapped out of whatever daydream she was having and immediately looked down at her marshmallow, which was now toasting nicely on the end of her stick.
“Uh…thanks,” she said, once again blushing and cowed and drawn in by me.
Shit.
“Quit blushing,” I scolded her, maybe a bit too harshly but it was necessary. I didn’t want history repeating itself. I didn’t want her building up any more illusions about me like she had in the past. Yes, I had screwed up and gotten too close to her, breaking the one rule I’d made for myself before setting foot in that fucking beach house, but I could still turn it around. I could show her I was no one’s Prince Charming. Especially not hers.
“What?” she asked, finally emerging from her trance.
“You heard me. You look ridiculous blushing at everything I say. I’m tired of being surrounded by desperate sluts trying to get my attention. So wipe that dreamy look off your face.” I went too far, like I always did, and Babygirl’s eyes went wide because my fiery arrow had hit her right in the pure, fragile little heart that I would have shattered into a thousand pieces if she’d even considered getting with a son of a bitch like me.
