"They were organized in a specific order. A chromatic sequence designed to?—"
"Tarmek." She grinned at him. The grin that made her eyes crinkle at the corners and dimples appear in her cheeks. Theone that meant she was enjoying his suffering. "They're tiny decorative objects. On a refrigerator."
"They have a system."
"A system." She set down her yogurt and walked back towards the refrigerator. "You have a system for your magnets."
"Yes."
"That's..." She reached up and deliberately moved one of the red magnets into the blue section. "That's unhinged, you know that?"
His eye twitched. She moved another magnet. Green into red.
"Edie."
"Hmm?" She was fully facing the refrigerator now, her back to him, her fingers rearranging the magnets with chaotic glee. "What was that? I couldn't hear you over the sound of your organizational system collapsing."
Blue into yellow. Purple into orange. The Emerald Enforcers logo moved to the far left corner, upside down.
Something inside him snapped. Not broke. Not cracked. Snapped—the way a rope snaps when you've pulled it past its breaking point, all that tension releasing at once in a single violent instant.
He crossed the kitchen in three strides. She must have heard him coming because she started to turn, started to say something, probably some teasing comment, but he didn't give her the chance.
He gripped her waist and lifted her up onto the counter in one smooth motion. She gasped, and her eyes went wide.
He stepped between her knees.
"Tarmek—"
"Stop." His voice came out raw, unrecognizable even to himself. "Stop talking."
Her eyes went even wider, and for possibly the first time since he'd met her, Edie Anderson was silent.
He stood there for a moment, breathing hard, still gripping her waist through the thin fabric of his shirt—hisshirt onherbody—and tried to remember all the reasons why this was a bad idea. She was a colleague. She was temporary. She was chaos personified and the antithesis of everything in his carefully controlled life.
She was also looking at him with huge brown eyes, her lips parted, her chest rising and falling rapidly, her hands braced on the counter on either side of her hips.
Waiting.
"You," he said slowly, "are driving me insane."
"I noticed."
"You move my things. You leave cups everywhere. You sleep upside down on my couch?—"
"That wasone time?—"
"—and you wear my clothes." His grip tightened on her waist. "You wear my clothes and you smell like my soap and yousingwhile you do it, and I cannot?—"
His voice cracked, and he swallowed hard. Her expression shifted. Some of the surprise melted away, replaced bysomething warmer, and she put her hands lightly on his forearms.
"Can't what?" she asked quietly.
He closed his eyes. "Think. I can't think. I can't concentrate. I can't do my routine or eat my meals or sleep in my own bed without wondering if you're?—"
The words wouldn't come. They stuck in his throat, all the things he wanted to say, all the things he'd been trying not to feel for days. Weeks. Since the moment she'd looked up at him from that chaos-strewn arena floor and smiled like sunshine.
"Tarmek." Her voice was gentle. Her hands slid up his forearms, over his biceps, and came to rest on his shoulders. "Look at me."
