Page 62 of Into Pitch

I open my mouth, then snap it shut. Heat flushing my cheeks as I refuse to break eye contact with him. “Don’t turn this back around on me. You’re avoiding everything I’m saying. Which only proves the point I just made.”

“You’re angry because you enjoy knowing exactly who I am.” He stabs the already gaping wound.

“You think dragging me out here is going to fix that?” I circle back to the whole felony kidnapping thing. “You think isolating me is going to make me healthier?”

“No, but I think it’s going to keep you honest.”

I shake my head, a bitter laugh bubbling out of my throat. “God, you really believe that.”

“I believe that you don’t know what to do with desire unless it’s framed in danger.” He pivots so hard that I nearly catch whiplash. I’m not sure at all where this conversation is really going. It feels like I’m taking shots in the dark and he’s already honed in on his target and refusing to miss.

“You mistake awareness for pathology,” I snap trying to recover. “I’m allowed to want things and still say no.”

“Yes and you can always say no, but I haven’t actually heard the word, little fox.” He chimes with an arch of his brow. My eye actually twitches as I glare up at him.

“Kidnapping me seems to delete the option to say no.”

“We’re past that,” He decides and waves his hand.

“We aren’t! God, can’t you see this is a problem?” I breathe out and throw my hand toward the cabin. I’m aware that he knows where we are, so showing it to him isn’t going to make a difference. But he’s a brick wall and I’m the ball that slams into it only to be hurdled six feet back after each impact.

“I see why you’re struggling with it,” he replies. Slapping a bandaid onto an injury that is in dire need of triage.

“You do not get to rewrite reality because you simply deem something so.” I push again.

“Maybe not,” he says. “But I do get to observe it.”

I want to scream. I want to throw half the kitchen at this man because it’s not getting through the two-mile thick skull that houses his irritatingly brilliant mind.

“Then observe, but let’s make one thing very clear. All you’ve done just now is prove that all you are doing here is chasing the reaction—not me. And as long as you treat me like a lab rat to poke and prod, then we aren’t going to make it to whatever finish line you have placed.” I snarl, stepping into him.

His eyes darken, but I seem to have caught beneath his armor with that last mark, so I keep going. “And you don’t like that I’m not afraid of you. Because if I’m not afraid, then this doesn’t give you all that power and control you crave. It becomes something mutual, and I have a feeling you don’t know the meaning of the word.”

“You’re wrong,” he states, quieter than I expect.

“Am I?” I huff.

“Yes, because power doesn’t require fear, little fox. It requires choice.” He uses in rebuttal.

I think my head might explode at the absurdity of this conversation.

“And whether you are ready to admit it or not yourself, you keep choosing me.” He adds.

I shake my head, stepping away from him this time. “No. I keep choosing to survive you.”

“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”

I throw my hands up, because I can’t.

“You’re unbelievable. You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he states again, and it almost sounds fond. As if he is genuinely enjoying this cluster fuck of an argument.

The tension coils, pulling us toward something neither of us should touch right now. And I feel it there beneath all that anger, even as I refuse it. I take another step away, picking my mug back up and draining the rest of it like a shot of courage.

“This doesn’t settle anything. I do not forgive you.”

“I’m not asking for your forgiveness,” he shrugs.