“I’m not running from you, Vi.” His voice was steady. Certain. “You’re the one holding me at arm’s length.”
My fingers curled into the towel beneath me, muscles locking.
I should have argued. I should have denied it, deflected, thrown it right back in his face.
But I couldn’t.
Because he was right.
I’d spent the last twenty-four hours pretending this tension between us didn’t exist. Convincing myself that Hazel was the only thing tethering me to him, that whatever was brewing between us would fade the second we stepped back into our normal lives.
But normal didn’t exist anymore. Not while I was trapped in his orbit.
My gaze dipped, almost without permission. To his mouth.
And the bastard smirked. Slow. Knowing. Unbearably smug.
Heat rushed up my neck, but before I could gather the composure to so much as snap at him, he leaned back, stretching out like the moment had never happened.
Like he hadn’t just left me teetering on the edge of something I had no business wanting.
“When you’re ready to stop pretending,” he murmured, lazy and confident, “you know where to find me, Princess.”
My teeth ground together at the nickname.
Or at least, they should have.
Because the truth, the one I refused to say out loud, was that it had stopped bothering me weeks ago.
But only when he said it.
I released a slow, shaky breath, staring at the spot where he’d been a second ago, my heart still knocking against my ribs.
CHAPTER TWENTY
GRIFFIN
“Hold it. Five more seconds.”
I gritted my teeth, muscles screaming as I pushed against the resistance. Sweat dripped down my temples, my neck straining against the padded harness that held my head in place.
“Four.”
My jaw clenched harder.
“Three.”
A grunt escaped me, the burn spreading down my shoulders.
“Two.”
My vision blurred at the edges.
“One.”
The second he gave the signal, I let go, muscles seizing as I collapsed forward, gasping for air. The harness dug into my skin, the weight gone but the strain lingering like an aftershock.
“Fuck me,” I muttered, reaching up to wipe the sweat from my eyes.
