Page 31 of Reckless
His hand caught the door before I could shut it.
Something changed in his face when he realized I’d looked at the hand before the rest of him.
“I don’t remember their names.I know yours.”
Being charmed was not in the works for us.I let out one disbelieving laugh.“You do think every room belongs to you.”
“No.”
“Then why do you keep acting like I and everyone else does as you decide?”
He held my gaze for a long second before answering.
“Because I overstepped last night,” he said.“And I’m trying to figure out how to correct that now.”
That hit too cleanly.
“What?”I asked and shook my head.We needed to get back to reality.“Act like saying one unexpectedly decent thing every six minutes means I won’t notice the rest of you.”
His eyes flicked over my face.“And what is the rest?”
“You deciding things for me.”
“You think I’m deciding for you now?”
“I think you’re standing outside my apartment explaining my social options to me like I’m a risk assessment.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“It’s exactly what you’re doing.”
“And yet your voice changes every time I’m right.”
I halted.Neither of us breathed for one very stupid second.
Then I stepped fully into the doorway and pointed out toward the stairs.“Leave.”
“Kelly-”
And that, somehow, was worse.
Because whatever game he was playing in his own head, whatever clean, efficient path through the fallout he thought he could build if he just stayed calm enough, it pressing at the edges of this conversation.
I stepped closer, close enough that if he wanted to pretend I was overreacting he’d have to do it with my anger in his face.
“Let me save you some time,” I said quietly.“Find someone else to solve your problem with.”
His gaze dropped to my mouth for half a second.
Came back up.
That awful, electric shift I’d felt across tables and on terraces and apparently now on my own damn apartment landing.The one where anger turned physical so fast it made me want to peel off my own skin.
“Kelly,” he said, lower now.
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”
