“It’s time to go,” he says abruptly, pushing himself out of my hold and stalking off toward his room.
I take up his vacated position, palm curled around the edge of the counter hard enough to hurt. “Fuck.”
The look on his face when he returns dares me to say anything. His pristine charcoal-grey suit’s almost like a shield, blocking me from him, and I want to tear every stitch of clothing off him until he’s naked and bared to me. Remove all the barriers he’s putting up between us. They don’t belong here.
A twist of hurt sits heavy in my chest when he turns away from me, not allowing a touch as I pass him on the way to his room to find my clothes. By the time I come back out, he’s gone, and my phone and keys are waiting beside the door.
If he’s left without me, we’re going to have unpleasant words. We don’t run from each other.
He’s been drifting from me from the moment last year when he was crushed between two cars, and I got ripped away from him with a blow to the head. I don’t know how to make it stop, to help him. Helpus. Holding tighter isn’t working, and all I can do is continue to squeeze until we both suffocate from it. I refuse to let go even if it kills us.
He’s waiting in the quietly idling car, phone in hand. I get in without a word, and he doesn’t so much as look my way as he reverses and heads out.
An ugly thought suddenly occurs to me, and I can’t contain it. “Are you dreaming about someone else?” The thought of it turns my stomach, roiling jealousy consuming me until I want to commit murder. Even his dreams belong to me, and no one gets to invade them or take up any space.
Kendrick does look at me then. There’s confusion and something darker, an answering call that feeds my own possessiveness. He owns me just as much as I own him. There’s nothing one-sided about the crazed need we both have. “I said nightmare, not sex dream.”
Hearing the wordssex dreamfrom those lips does nothing to abate the green monster twining in my chest like vines attempting to strangle me. “It’s my nightmare,” I mutter in response. I want to be the only thought he has. For him to wake up sticky and wanting from thoughts of me.
“I have them about you.”
“Nightmares or sex dreams?”
“Both.”
Silence descends for the rest of the car ride, a strange discomfort to it that makes me itchy. He stops at the small coffee shop he likes, a few blocks from work, the same way he does every morning. Normally I’d go in with him, but not today. I’m liable to do something unforgiveable to the man behind the bar that always flirts with Kendrick. He’s fucking lucky I haven’talready. It’d be all too easy to spill his blood across the counters and get away with it.
Our fingers brush when he hands me my decaf latte, and our eyes meet, staying there for a timeless moment. His hazel green is more familiar to me than my own, a gorgeous blend with the green winning out.
Whatever’s wrong, I’m going to fix it.
Chapter five
Kendrick
The stalemate between usdoesn’t break even when we pull into the driveway of HQ, a house hidden in the middle of Mosman. Eight-foot fences with more security than the average home. The large gate swings open, and I park behind Moira’s red Mazda6 sedan.
Spencer gets out before I can say anything, slamming the door behind himself and half jogging up the stepping-stone walkway, carefully avoiding stepping on the thick green grass. He absently taps the hanging ferns and then lets himself through the glass-frosted front double doors.
I’m not offended he doesn’t leave it open for me; he can’t. The door automatically locks behind itself after five seconds. And I need a minute to compose myself anyway. He fogs everything up, taking up all the oxygen in the room until thought is difficult. As if it has anything to do with proximity to him. I could be on the other side of the world, and he’d still affect me.
Spencer hasn’t gone far; he’s in the kitchen with Six and Moira, all three of them eating out of the same strawberry yoghurt container. Six and Moira are sharing a spoon, passing it back and forth. Did we run out of cutlery or something?
The sun hasn’t quite risen yet, and only the barest hint of light comes through the wall of glass near the dining table. I can see why they’re standing at the counter to eat; Hunter’s plants are spread across the table, in various stages of potting. He must have gone shopping over the weekend to get more. Because the place doesn’t have enough greenery.
“So I got your message,” Six says, licking his spoon. “Riley sent me one too, and Hunter. I was very popular, and it woke Greer up. He took offence to that, which I took offence to, and suffice to say, we didn’t go back to sleep.”
In revenge for that imagery—Spencer is the only person I want to fantasise about naked—I steal one of the Snickers bars from the freezer.
Moira makes an exaggerated, hissed-pain sound and uses Six’s momentary lapse to steal the yoghurt container from him, hoarding it for herself.
Six smirks at me, unperturbed at the loss of his breakfast. “Your funeral, man.”
“As if you don’t want something else to take offense to.” Retreat is the only option after that comment because I definitely don’t want to hear Six’s response. It’ll only add more imagery.
His chuckle follows me down the hallway.
A glance into his and Greer’s office—habit mostly—has me stopping in my tracks. “What are you doing here?”
