Everything inside me freezes.
I’m not afreezeguy when it comes to fight or flight.
Except right now.
Right now, I’m frozen with my hand on hers, having an internal panic attack because she kissed me.
She kissed me, and I can’t get out of my own way to read the signals about if she’d kiss me again, and I can’t get out of my own way to decide if I want her to or not.
“Are you okay?” she says softly.
“You remind me of my ex, and she fucked me over so badly I wasn’t sure I had a heart left after she was gone, and no, I’m not okay.”
Shit.
Shit.
I just said that.
Margot shifts her hand, turning it to wrap it around mine and squeeze softly. “You ever talk about it much?”
“No.”
“Want to?”
“No.”
“Probably should.”
“Yeah, everyone wants to hear about how I was picking out baby names for nonexistent children the week before our wedding while she was fucking my stepbrother in the back of the SUV the company assigned me for work.”
“Want me to destroy them?”
I start to laugh—one of those not-funny laughs—and rub my eyes with the hand that hasn’t been in the cinnamon-sugar popcorn. “You’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you?”
“Honestly? Probably not. I generally—not always, but generally—get far more satisfaction out of helping people reach their best than in tearing them down. But Idohave resources, and Idorecognize the value of occasionally assisting karma.”
I squint at her. “People call you a shark.”
“I’msmart. I’m strategic. I see opportunities. That doesn’t mean I’m unkind. Especially—” She sucks in a big breath, squeezes her eyes shut for a minute, and then sighs as she blinks her eyes open at me again. “Especially since my parents cutDaphne off. And how. She was—is—all heart, and what they did to her was cruel and callous and unnecessary. What they did to her forced me to face some truths I’d been conveniently ignoring about how I felt about the way my father runs the ship.”
“So you’re not a shark?”
“I’m a lioness. I lead the pride. And the pride is more powerful when every lion in it is getting what they need to thrive. Not when they’re being pushed past their breaking points and taken for granted and abused.”
I swallow hard.
Then again.
I haven’t even started the fire with the wood I brought in for that very purpose, and I’m sweating.
The woman shouldn’t be this attractive. She shouldn’t.
Being in the Marines? Got it. Hard work, sometimes scary, but I’ve got it.
Personal security? Same thing.
Relationships? Being attracted to a woman again?
