“Do you,” he says. Low. A voice meant for this distance and no other. “Mean that.”
“Mean what?”
“That you’re sorry.”
“I — yes. Of course.”
He takes another step, and my body makes the decision to take a step back. My lower back hits the edge of the counter. I feel the cold through my sweatshirt.
There’s nowhere else to go.
“Do I make you nervous?” he asks.
“No.”
The lie is spectacular. An act of defiance so transparent that a child could see through it.
My breath is shallow. There’s a flush climbing my chest that I can feel and he can probably see, and my hands — my stupid, traitorous hands — are gripping the edge of the counter behind me with a force that’s turning my knuckles white.
“No,” I repeat, as if saying it again will make it true.
His expression changes.
“Your body,” he lowers his voice, “tells a different story.”
He moves closer. His hands come up slowly and land on the counter behind me. One on each side. Arms bracketing my body. He’s not touching me, but the cage is built.
I should push past him, duck under his arm, run out of this kitchen and go straight to my room, where I should lock the door.
But his nostrils flare. His jaw tightens. His eyes go darker.
He can smell me. Not perfume, I’m not wearing any. Not soap or shampoo or the lavender lotion Angelina left in my bathroom. So, what else is there?
My cheeks flush as I consider the possibility that it’s the scent of my arousal.
“Say it again,” he says.
“Say what?”
“That you’re sorry.”
I don’t understandwhat he wants, where this is going. But his voice has a weight that growlsdo it,and my mouth obeys before my brain can intervene.
“I’m sorry.”
He bites his tongue for a moment before deciding, “That’s not enough.”
“I don’t — what do you want me to?—”
“Prove it.”
“How?”
His gaze drops as the question hangs, traveling from my eyes to my mouth, to my throat, to the hem of the sweatshirt, to the waistband of my shorts and lower, and the path his eyes take is slow and unhurried and thorough — tracing an invisible line down my body, leaving heat wherever they land.
“Take them off,” he says.
The air leaves the room.
