Page 76 of Fall For Me
She’s standing so close I can count her eyelashes, smell the apple cider on her breath. Gravity is shifting to drag me into her space.
It would only take one step.
One tilt of my head.
One mistake.
27
PEYTON
I’m mid-sentence when I realize he’s not listening. His eyes are unfocused, his attention bouncing between me and the corn behind me.
“Hello?” I snap my fingers in front of his face.
His gaze jerks up, and he steps back. Liam lifts his hands in surrender.
“You’re right,” he says.
I blink. “What?”
“About the directions. Lead the way, I’ll follow.”
The words land wrong. I narrow my eyes. “Why are you saying I’m right?”
His jaw tightens. “Because you are. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“No.” I step closer, refusing to let him retreat. “I want to win the argument fair and square. Not have you roll over… for mysterious reasons.”
His nostrils flare. “I’m agreeing with you. What’s your problem now?”
“My problem is that you don’t really agree with me.” I jab a finger at his chest. “You think I’m wrong. That we should’vegone left at the fork. So why are you suddenly acting like I’m the expert navigator?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes, it matters. You don’t get to pretend I’m right when we both know you’re just?—”
“Just what?” He steps forward, crowding my space. The stalks rustle behind me, hemming me in.
“Patronizing me,” I finish, but my voice comes out smaller than I intended.
His eyes darken. That muscle in his jaw twitches.
“I’m not patronizing you.”
“Then why?” I demand. “Why are you agreeing with me all of a sudden?”
“Because.” The word is clipped.
He takes another step. Then another. I retreat until my back hits the wall of corn, the stalks scratching against my coat.
Liam cages me in. “For the last five minutes,” he says through gritted teeth, “I’ve been considering kissing you just to shut your pouty mouth.”
The air turns thin in my lungs; it no longer carries enough oxygen.
“So unless you want the afternoon to end that way”—his gaze drops to my lips, deliberate this time—“you’d better shut up on your own.”
I shiver, trembling with a chill that has nothing to do with the fast-lowering temperature.
