That’s okay. I don’t much feel like trading barbs anyway.
He coasts his gaze around the penthouse as if searching for something out of place. It does feel different, being here in relative quiet with him. Neither of us reaching for the closest verbal weapon. But I’m too exhausted from running mental circles. And he seems exhausted, period.
“You all right?” he asks eventually, tipping his chin to the pile of tissues I push into the garbage can. “Are you sick?”
I shake my head, dumping my tea down the drain. “I’m fine.”
He halts my steps after I load my mug into the dishwasher, his big hands landing on the counter, on either side of my hips. “You look like you were crying.”
I don’t answer, rolling my lips over my teeth, and he bends slightly, waiting for me to meet his gaze. “What’s wrong?”
I lift my shoulder. “Just work stuff.” When he rubs his hand over his mouth and jaw, I turn the question back on him. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Work stuff.”
I bite back the growing curl of amusement on my lips and move to push past him, but he stops me once again, this time with his hand on my arm. His fingers are so wide and long—almost twice the size of mine—they easily wrap all the way around my biceps. “I can tell you’re upset. Don’t go driving yet. Stay for a little while.”
Stay?
With him?
To calm down?
That’s not a thing that has ever happened in our past. Historically, he has only ever made me upset.
But maybe he needs me to stay for him, what with how he looks like a kicked puppy, so I agree with a beleaguered, “Fine.”
His mouth tips up in a half smile as he repeats, “Fine.”
If I’m going to stay here, I’m going to drown my sorrows with one of the tubs of ice cream. I dig out the chocolate peanutbutter but don’t bother with a bowl, then take my seat once again and help myself to a spoonful.
On the other side of the counter, Camden watches intently, arms folded over his chest. When I raise my brows in question, he shakes his head at me. “Barbarian.”
“I just watched you down an entire Gatorade in three seconds flat. Me eating ice cream out of the carton is no worse or better.”
“Germs.” He motions to the spoon I stab back into the frozen dessert after having it in my mouth, and I cough a laugh.
“I’m sure you’ve picked up far worse germs in far grosser places than my mouth.”
I realize only after his attention locks on my mouth what I said, how it’s basically an open invitation to talk about what I’ve put in my mouth, where it’s been. Wherehismouth has been.
And suddenly, his 3,000-square-foot apartment feels like three feet. A yard.
Sunk down to mere inches when he leans his elbows on the counter, snagging the spoon out of my hand to scoop some ice cream. His square jaw is covered in a day’s worth of growth, dark hair that I know would feel like tiny pinpricks against my skin, abrading the softest part of me when he pressed his mouth there. The idea of him dragging his tongue over me, making sure he tastesallof me, has liquid heat pooling in my belly, and not even the spoonful of ice cream Camden offers can cool it down.
Not with the way his dark eyes are practically black, following my every movement, from the way I part my mouth around the spoon to the lift of my throat when I swallow. His voice is broken glass when he speaks. “I should eat this more often.”
I crawl over the shards to hear more. “It’s not against your diet?”
He holds up the spoon between us. “You should know by now, I like to break the rules.”
Yes, I know.
The whole country knows.
But I’ve never wanted to break rules more than I do with him, which is ridiculous.
The man is reckless and inconsiderate. Arrogant and impulsive. A selfish prick.
