Page 109 of Forever Defiant
“I don’t have feelings,” I snapped at him.
He rolled his eyes. “Then why are you being all... needy?” he asked. “I’ll tell you why. It’s because you finally let go of the shit you’ve been pretending you don’t feel about her.”
A muscle in my jaw jumped. “That’s not—”
“Itis, though,” he said. “And now you’re in here, because your bro’s busy and you’re making me listen to your... stuff.” He shrugged. “You like her. It scares you, and that’s all I got.”
“I’m not scared of Hadley,” I said with a groan, getting to my feet. “You’re terrible at this, by the way.”
“I didn’t say you were scaredofher. It’s the fact that you feel somethingforher that scared the hell out of you. It’s kind of obvious, dude.”
I clenched my fists, avoiding his gaze. He was completely wrong. But I could still hear her — the gasp, the way she said my name, the way she didn’t push me away. That was the part I couldn’t stop replaying. Not that I lost control, but that she didn’t want me to stop.
Noah waggled his eyebrows at me. “You like her.”
“I don’t,” I grumbled.
He gave me a look. “Try again without lying.”
I stared at the carpet. “I can’t... I don’t want her like that.”
“Why?”
Because one kiss, and I lost every ounce of sense I had left.
But I just said, “Because I don’t get involved.”
Noah sighed. “Yeah. That’s not going to stop anything.”
I dragged a hand over my face. “I crossed a line.”
“Did she look upset?”
“No.”
“Did she tell you to stop?”
No, she practically begged me to keep going.“No.”
“Then you didn’t cross a line,” he said. “Maybe you just need to admit you actually give a damn.”
I pressed my palms against my eyes, heat prickling at the back of my neck. “She’s a problem,” I muttered.
I heard his snicker. “Maybe,” he said, “or maybe she’s finally going to be the one who makes you honest.”
I laughed — one sharp, humorless sound — as I got to my feet. “Not a chance in hell.”
Noah didn’t have an answer.
I was already spiraling again, hands on my hips, pacing like an animal too big for its cage. “I shouldn’t want her.”
I said it softly. Admitted it like a confession.
“But you do?” Noah asked, and I nodded grimly. “And I think you’re in deep, and either you’re in denial or you’re blind.”
I closed my eyes, my hands behind my head, my head bowed. And for one dizzy, brutal moment, I let myself remember the way she said my name against my mouth.
Yeah. I was screwed.
