And don’t tempt me, either, I think as my fingers flex around her wrist, unwilling to let go. I pour what scraps of self-control I contain into my efforts to peel my hand from her skin, to no avail.
“This is going to be fun for me,” she says. “But a nightmare for you if you don’t adjust quickly.” She tsks. “And I think we both know you’re no good with change. We’re in for a long ride.”
“Don’t talk about rides with me,” I snap, glaring at my hand on her skin. “We’re not going on one, because you’re going to accept that this thing you’re doing is stupid, impulsive, and ill-advised, and then you’re going to stop.” I pry my pinky finger away. “There’s nothing wrong with our current relationship.” Basically, anyway. Until I become a man worthy of more, but thatmorewill not besiblinghood. It will be marriage. And babies. And maybe a cat. “It’s just a matter ofwhenyou’ll give up,” I grunt, managing to dislodge my ring finger as well.
She hums. “I suppose it’s really a matter of who will give up first,” she counters. “And I’m betting on it not being me. I’ve always been stubborn and unwilling to quit. You, though…” she trails off, nose scrunching. “You’re a man who runs,” she continues, slicing right to the heart of me. “And a man who runs isn’t a man who wins. Not in something like this. You either accept my offer of sisterhood and I get your family as my ownback again but with you in it—or you run away to escape having to deal with it, and I get your family as my own back again the same way it was before.” She shrugs. “It makes no difference to me which door you choose, but I do think that your parents and siblings would prefer you take the harder route and opt to adopt me the way that they have. They missed you when you were gone.”
Pushing past the pall ofouch, I reply, “You know I have emotions, right? Feelings? You being cute doesn’t give you a free pass to trample all over them not caring what the consequences may be.”
She blinks. “You think I’m cute? Like, say, a little sister?”
My heart hammers, half devastated and half angry. “I could throttle you,” I hiss. “Can’t you takeanythingseriously? I’m not a plaything, kit. I’m aperson.”
Her brows furrow. “Why can’t you be both?”
Frustration stabs my hurt, followed quickly by disgust with myself. This is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with—the person whose opinion matters more than almost anyone in the world’s to me—andthisis how lowly she thinks of me. This is what I’vemadeher think of me.
The road to redemption is long, jagged, and freaking discouraging to navigate, especially when one is navigating it alone. Because if the person I spend most of my time with doesn’t see me as more than a flighty jerk who’s more plaything than person? Then how am I going to convince my family that I’m any better than what her opinion of me is?
I could sit in this office until I’m a rotting corpse despairing over the answer to that question, but I won’t. Instead, I’ll do better. Be better. I’ll prove her wrong—prove to my parents that I can be somebody they can count on and trust. Then I’ll woo my infuriating little brat, marry her, and work every day to balanceher usually appealing snark with the sweetness love casts over her.
If she wants both a plaything and person? I’ll be a plaything and a person.
But I’ll do itmyway.
Starting now.
Chapter Eighteen
?
I like to call this: hot, not spicy.
Poem
“What are you doing?” I ask, leaningwayback on Fox’s desk. The papers beneath me crinkle, and my hand slips on one, forcing me down to my elbow. “Scootch back over there, buster. This is Poem space.” Poem space that he isseriouslyin right now, having stood to loom over me—closely.
The butterflies in my stomach areliving. They flurry about, taunting me with their joy.
“You wanted to play,” Fox murmurs, laying a hand on my cheek. “I’m playing.”
My lashes flutter in confusion. “I thought you didn’t want to play.”
He shrugs broad shoulders, feathers rippling beneath the short sleeves of his T-shirt. “I don’t want to play your game. My game is better.”
“Is it?” I choke as he closes the space between us, his free hand landing beside my hip to support his body weight as he all but lies on top of me. I raise a hand to grasp his forearm in a vain attempt to stop his descent. “I like my games better. My games involve a lot less… whatever this is. And alotless of that look in your eye, which I don’t think I like all that much.” Regardless of what insects in my stomach have to say about the subject.
“I don’t think I like all that much you tearing me down to my insecurities and throwing them in my face,” he responds, baringhis teeth. “I suppose we’re both compromising on our desires today.”
“At least mine have a clear end goal. What are you hoping to gain right now?”
“The upper hand,” he answers.
Then.
Then.
Then!!!
