“Didn’t say you were.”
“Don’t do that.”
His brows pull in. “Do what?”
“Act like—” I cut myself off and laugh once, sharp and ugly. “Like last night means you get to handle me.”
For the first time since he came out the door, something flashes in him—hurt, maybe, or temper, gone too fast to trust.
He steps in anyway, close enough now that I can smell soap and smoke and him, and drops his voice to something only I can hear over the hum of the dumpster fan and the distant throb of music inside.
“Last night means I know what fear looks like on you,”he says. “And this ain’t fear. This is you trying to decide whether to run before someone can push you.”
The accuracy of it makes me furious.
It also makes me want to grab his shirt and kiss him just to shut him up.
My life is a joke. Here I am doing my damndest to push this weirdly considerate, sexy-as-sin man away and hurt to near-tears by another who’s doing the same thing to me.
I settle for a hissed, “You don’t know me.”
His gaze drops to my mouth and stays there one beat too long. “Maybe I want to.”
That look should be illegal. I hate the way my body answers it, heat curling low and treacherous in the middle of a panic spiral.
He must see something in my face, because his expression shifts—darkens, softens, both. His thumb moves against my wrist again, over the band, and this time he covers my hand between us with his own so I stop reaching for pain.
“Don’t mark yourself up any more before he sees you,” he murmurs. “Nash notices everything.”
I swallow. “Maybe I want him to.”
“No,” Shiloh says, and there’s a quiet certainty in it that makes me go still. “You want him to underestimate you. Just like you wanted all of us to.”
Silence stretches. His hand is still around my wrist. Mine is still in his. The kitten is curled between us, warm and cozy like all of this is perfectly normal.
The back lot falls away for a second—the smell, the heat, the noise—until there’s just the pressure of his thumb and the memory of his phone light on my nightstand.
I should pull free.
Instead I say, too softly, “Ever told me I should leave.”
Shiloh goes still.
Not dramatic. Not a full-body reaction. Just one of those small, controlled pauses men like them do when something lands exactly where it hurts.
“What did he say, exactly?” His voice is careful now.
I watch him while I answer. “He said I should really think about leaving. Before it’s too late.”
A muscle jumps in his jaw. There. Finally. Something.
I hate how badly I want to ask him what it means. I hate more that I don’t trust whatever answer he’d give.
Shiloh exhales through his nose and releases my wrist slowly, like letting go costs him something. “He didn’t fire you, Reva. If you were fired, he’d have said, ‘you’re fired.’”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I’m telling youanyway.”
