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I turn my face away, jaw locking, but the damage is already done, and my whole body jerks backward into a place I don’t want it to go.

His gaze drops to my wrist, then snaps back up to my face, and whatever he sees there drains the fury from him.

“Are you hurt again?”

I swallow and rip my hand back the second his grip gives me room, then shove him away with my other palm. “I got into a fight.” I force a sneer onto it. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

He doesn’t believe me.

I know he doesn’t before he even says anything. His eyes stay on my wrist for another beat too long. Then he lifts them to my face again, and there’s something colder in him now as he steps in again.

This time his hands land on my waist.

I try to push off the wall, and he traps me there anyway, crowding me back with his body until all the space in the room belongs to him. “Where?” he asks.

I glare at him. “Can you not hear? I said—”

“Where does it hurt?” His voice is lower now, threaded tight with anger that’s no longer entirely about the party. “Your wrist?”

I shove at his shoulders. “Get off.”

His hands tighten at my waist just enough to keep me pinned, not enough to hurt. “Could you stop with the tantrums for five seconds?”

I bare my teeth. “Don’t talk to me like that.”

“Then stop trying to provoke me so fucking hard.”

I laugh in his face, humorless. “I’m not wasting my time provoking you. You’re perfectly capable of embarrassing yourself without my help.”

“You posted that for me.”

“I posted that because I can.”

His eyes flick over my face, reading everything I don’t want read. “Liar.”

“You delusional—”

He kisses me right through the insult. He has a habit of interrupting me with his mouth, and it works every time.

I freeze for one second too long, and then he’s kissing me deeper, using the opening, turning my own shock against me the way he always does.

When he pulls back, it’s only enough for his lips to brush mine when he speaks.

“Making me jealous isn’t smart, Ilya.”

Hearing my name in that specific tone makes my spine react like the treacherous little bitch it apparently is.

I glare at him, breathing harder than I should be. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

His thumb presses into my side once. “You know exactly what.”

I laugh again, but this one catches halfway in my throat. “You don’t get to be jealous. You’re not my anything.”

His expression shifts, something darker bleeding into it until I can’t quite read him anymore. “Then I need to make something very clear.”

I should probably shut up. “You don’t own me.”

“I guess you need a reminder.”