And fuck, that look.Like she was thinking things she hadn’t been thinking two days ago.Like she’d made some kind of decision right there in the parking lot.
“Easy, huh?”she asked.
My jaw tightened.
“Sugar,” I growled low.
Two days ago she hadn’t been ready.
Now?Now she was looking at me like she might drag me into the backseat and prove a point.
“Get in the damn car, Britta,” I muttered.“You can’t look at me like that.”
She arched a brow.“Why not?”
I leaned down just a little, close enough that I could see the way her pupils had blown wide.“Because right after you look at me like that is when things change,” I said.“Change you didn’t want yet.”
She scrunched her nose, then shrugged like it didn’t matter.“Maybe change doesn’t seem so scary anymore.”
“Britta.”
“Swift.”
Jesus, she was going to be the death of me.
“Get in the car,” I said again, rougher this time.
She smiled like she knew exactly what she was doing, then she dipped into the seat.
I shut the door a little harder than necessary and rounded the front of the car, dragging a hand over my jaw before I got in.
The engine turned over and we pulled out into traffic.
And the silence between us?It wasn’t empty.It was thick, heavy, and charged.
I kept my eyes on the road, but my mind wasn’t there.It was back by that car door.Back with the way she’d looked at me.Back with how close I’d come to hauling her against me and finishing what we’d almost started before.
I flexed my fingers on the steering wheel.
She didn’t say a word, and neither did I.
Because if either of us did?That silence was going to snap and I wasn’t sure I had the control to stop what came after.
Not when I could still feel the ghost of her that close to me.
Not when I knew exactly how easily everything between us could change.
And not when I wasn’t sure she was ready for what that change would mean.
Chapter Fifteen
Britta
The bar still smelled like smoke.
Not as strong as it had been a few days ago, not thick and choking like it had been the night everything went to hell, but it lingered.It clung to the walls, the floor, the wood behind the bar like a reminder that nothing about this place was the same anymore.
Kind of like me.
