“You don’t get to call me obsessed when you followed me up three flights of rusted stairs to play doctor in my kitchen.”
“You don’t get to call me obsessed when you moved out of Hockey House because a couch held a memory of me.”
His hand shot out, not to grab me, but to slam against the counter beside my hip. The sound cracked through the apartment like a gunshot, and somewhere down the hall, the fighting couple went quiet for half a beat before starting again, louder.
Easton leaned in, his body caging me against the counter. “I moved because I was tired of reminders of you.”
My pulse kicked hard, frantic against my ribs. “That sounds like your problem.”
“You were always my problem.”
“You loved it.”
“I hated loving it. That is the entire problem.”
“Bullshit.”
His eyes dropped toward my mouth again, and this time neither of us pretended he hadn’t done it. The look felt like a physical touch, a brand. The whole ugly building kept living around us, loud, dirty, and furious, while Easton stood close enough for his shirt to brush my coat and his newly bandaged hand flexed at his side like he was fighting the urge to use it.
I stepped back because I refused to be the first to fold.
My hip struck the opposite counter with a dull thud.
His gaze followed the movement, predatory and intent. “You done?”
“With your hand, yes.”
“With me?”
The question came out mean, a challenge thrown at my feet.
I smiled because I had nothing safer left, the expression sharp and brittle. “I was done with you months ago, remember?”
His face went cold in a way that should have warned me, a glacial mask settling over his features. “That right?”
“That’s what you keep telling yourself, isn’t it?”
He crossed the kitchen so quickly I barely had time to breathe before he stood in front of me again, one hand braced against the counter beside my body, caging me without touching. His injured hand remained curled at his side, but his good one gripped the laminate hard enough to bleach his knuckles white.
“Don’t do that,” he said, his voice a low, dangerous rumble.
My breath came too quickly and too shallow. “Do what?”
“Act like you get to come into my apartment, put your hands on me, throw those eyes at me, and pretend you’re above what happens next.”
“What happens next?”
His gaze fell toward my mouth and stayed there, heavy and hungry. “Something you’ll blame me for.”
Heat ripped through me so quickly it felt like anger with a pulse, a live wire sparking inside my veins. “You think I don’t know how to take responsibility?”
“I think you know how to leave before it gets that far.”
I shoved both hands against his chest, one hard, futile push. He barely moved, a solid wall of muscle and tension. “Move.”
“No.”
“Easton.”
