“Fixed it,” I mutter, grabbing my work bag and striding past him. I don’t turn around, not even when I know she’s following me. I pick up the pace.
“Luke, wait—” Molly calls, but I’m already down the hall. “Luke!”
Fuck.
I keep walking, my grip tightening on my work bag. The cold morning air hits me as I push through the door, but it does nothing to cool the heat still burning through my veins from that kiss.
A kiss I never should have let happen.
Her footsteps tap behind me, getting closer. My keys in hand. If I can just get to my truck, shut the door, drive away—
“Luke, please!”
I’m at my truck now, but she’s right behind me, slightly out of breath, her cheeks flushed from the cold—or maybe from the kiss.
Shit.
“Can we just talk about—”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” The words come out harsh with no room for argument. I need distance. Cold, hard distance before this goes any further.
Before I let myself want something I can’t have.
“Nothing to talk about?” She stops in front of me, blocking my path to the driver’s side door, those doe eyes searching my face. “You kissed me.”
And it was the best kiss I’ve had in years. Maybe ever.
Which is exactly why I need to end this. Now.
“I know what I did.” I force myself to meet her far too pretty gaze. I keep my expression hard, void of emotion even as my heart hammers against my ribs. “It was a mistake.”
Her shoulders fall. “A mistake?”
Say yes. Push her away. It’s for her own good. You’ll only hurt her worse later.
I clench my jaw so tight it aches. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. It shouldn’t have happened.”
“It shouldn’t have—” Her voice cracks and something in my chest twists painfully. “But you kissed me like—”
“Like what?” I cut her off, my tone sharp.Be an asshole. It’s what you’re good at. “Like it meant something? Because it didn’t. It was just a kiss, Molly. And it won’t happen again.”
Liar. Fucking liar.
She steps back and I’m forced to watch the hurt flash across her face. “You don’t mean that.”
I don’t. “I do.”
I move around her, unlocking my truck and opening the door with more force than necessary. “Look, you’re the kind of personwho believes in love and all that Valentine’s Day magic bullshit Danny’s peddling.”And you deserve someone who believes in it, too. “But I’m not that guy. I don’t do relationships, I don’t do romance, and I sure as hell don’t do—” I gesture vaguely between us because I can’t bring myself to put a name to whatever this…electric thing is that’s building between us. “—whatever this is.”
“This?” She wraps her arms around herself and I have to look away. “You mean a connection, a…spark?”
Every word is a direct hit, but I can’t let her see that.
My hand tightens on the truck door until my knuckles go white. “That’s not what this is.”
“Right.” She laughs, but it’s hollow, broken, and I hate that I’m the one who put that sound in her voice. “Because heaven forbid you stop hiding behind your grumpy, wounded act.”
Wounded. The word digs under my skin.
