“You.”
He laughed once, sharp and disbelieving. “I’m not an experiment.”
“No. You’re not.”
He stepped into me then, deliberately this time, chest brushing mine, chin tilted up in challenge. If this was intimidation, it was flawed; I wouldn’t respond to this as he expected. But I registered the proximity, the steady refusal to look away, the fact he didn’t retreat even knowing exactly what I was capable of.
“You’re angry because I don’t hesitate,” I said quietly. “And because part of you doesn’t want me to. You’re conflicted.”
His breath hitched. “Fuck you.”
“You know if it comes down to it, you’d want me in front of you.”
“That doesn’t mean I want you on top of me.”
The silence that followed was different as he realized what he’d said. I would enjoy being on top of him. Under him.
I caught his jaw in my hand, not hard enough to bruise, firm enough to stop the words he was about to throw at me. His skin was warm, rain-cool at the edges, pulse strong beneath my thumb.
He should have hit me, but he didn’t. Instead, his hand came up, gripping my wrist—not to break it, not to shove me away, but holding it there.
“What are you doing?” he snarled, attempting to get me to back off.
I had this overwhelming urge to kiss him, but what if I couldn’t breathe?
His fingers fisted in the front of my jacket, and he tugged me closer instead of pushing me away, his mouth on mine with an exhale that sounded almost like anger.
I began to panic. His body was solid against mine until he broke it first. His hands stayed in my jacket a fraction too long before he shoved me back, breathing uneven, eyes bright in a way that had nothing to do with rain.
“Don’t.” his voice cracked. He scrubbed a hand over his mouth, then dropped it, jaw set hard. “It doesn’t mean you get to—” he cut himself off again, because the rest of that sentence required admitting there was something to get.
Rain ran down his temple and along his jaw. He didn’t wipe it away. He just stood there, chest rising and falling too fast, gaze locked on mine.
He searched my face. I didn’t know how to give him softness; I wasn’t going to apologize or retreat.
I kissed him. Brief. Hard, and then backed away.
His mouth fell open. That wasn’t a smooth kiss at all. Maybe I should have been softer, but what did I know about kissing? I’d never kissed anyone in my life.
“What the hell, asshole!” He wiped his mouth.
“I wanted to kiss you.”
“You wanted to—” He stopped again, teeth clenching. “You don’t get to kiss random people,” he said.
“You’re not a random person.”
“Novak—”
“No one else touches you.”
The certainty in my own voice registered a fraction of a second after the words left my mouth, and Caleb’s expression sharpened.
“Fucks sake,” he muttered, but I didn’t know what the issue was. The statement had been accurate. There was nothing to debate. Because the truth was, the moment he said it, my mind had already run the scenario and rejected it outright. Caleb with someone else? Someone else’s hands on him, someone else leaning into his space the way I had earlier. The image formed quickly and triggered a deep, immediate sense of wrongness that sat heavily in my chest.
It wasn’t what I understood jealousy to be, more like the irritation I experienced when a tactical situation didn’t align with the facts.
The idea of some random man touching him made me furious.
