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“No. Which is why it doesn’t matter if I’m attracted to you or how much skin you show or whether you’re in my house or another town—it changes nothing. I don’t act on those impulses, and I never will.”
“But you have them.” He bites his thumb between his grinning teeth and does that thing where he looks up at me through his lashes, so innocently sexy that I want to snap him in half for trying it on me.
And I want to rip my heart from my chest at the way it reacts to his blatant attempts. The way it speeds up without my permission, like a disobedient child that knows what the correct choice is and obstinately makes the wrong one.
Attraction is useless and pointless and completely unwanted. It leads to vulnerability and giving up control. I avoid attraction at all costs—man or woman; it doesn’t matter—and I’ve never, ever felt it for someone so fucking incapable.
But I’m not fighting it anywhere near as much as I should be.
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
SASHA
Lynx can say he’s fighting his attraction to me all he likes; his eyes are telling a different story. They end up exactly where I want them during every conversation, and I’d feel bad for how easily he’s falling for my plans if I weren’t so damn excited for what comes next.
Unleashing the animal.
I’d really expected him to put up more of a fight about me staying here, but he folded instantly. That tells me he wants me around as much as I want to be around, and while it’s primarily for the promise of sex, there’s a small part of me that just settles knowing he’s here.
He says he’s the protector, and I can feel that on a subconscious level.
I know for a fact that I’ve never met anyone like him. Antonio liked to parade me around like his property and threaten anyone who’d look twice at me, but it was an ownership thing, not actual protection, and I know how easily he would have traded me in if someone else caught his eye.
I wasn’t disillusioned there, but I enjoyed the game.
“Watch yourself,” Lynx murmurs, reaching over to catch my hand. His touch is warm against my skin. “You almost cut your finger off.”
I glance down at where the knife I’m using to cut potatoes is hovering right over my thumb. “Good save.”
“Pay attention.”
“I am …” I glance at him from the corner of my eye. “Just not to dinner.”
He knows exactly what I’m implying, and while he releases my hand, he doesn’t move away. Just stays quietly working by my side.
Outside the window, the sun is kissing the horizon, and we’re working by the last of the orange glow left behind. It makes his red hair even more fiery than usual, pale skin full of life, and for once, Lynx looks more human than the animal I usually view him as.
“The dinner you made me was actually really good.”
He doesn’t answer. God forbid the man takes a compliment.
“It was so sweet of you to drop it off.”
“I cook for Ziggy every week, and I had extra. It was nothing.”
“Did you also have extra of those glass bottles you put up outside my cabin? What about those sheets over there?”
Again, nothing. I know I’ll make him break though.
“Why is it so easy for you to admit that you protect people and so hard for you to admit that you care?”
“I don’t care. It’s a complete inconvenience to have to watch out for people all of the time, and I’d much prefer they took interest in looking out for themselves.”
“Or maybe they do, and it just doesn’t look the way you expect it to.”
His jaw tightens, and he scoops all the vegetables into a pot that he sets on the stovetop.
