Page 58 of Overkill

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He bit his lower lip, and it was the most sensual thing I had ever seen. I thought he would kiss me right then. I really did. He had that look in his eyes—the longing that spoke to something in me. Like he was mirroring a desire that was in me as well. A desire I was trying very hard not to acknowledge.

But he didn’t.

He put more distance between us, turning away as he cleared his throat. “I’ll be on the couch. I’ll check on you through the night, though.”

And maybe I was feeling sour. Maybe I was just…sick of this game.

This something that wasn’t really anything.

He was doing so much. Too much.

He was always on the brink of a kiss, always with desire in his eyes, always saying the right things. Always too good to be true. But also always pulling away at the last minute.

“Is Marcus right?” I asked. “Are you just here because I’m an easy target, and you want to get out of a barn?”

He sat on the couch. This farmhouse, open-kitchen plan had been my mother’s dream. Being able to see us in the family room while she cooked and washed up gave her so much joy. She liked having her children close. But from where I stood, he was too far away. Out of my finger’s reach, and I hated it.

“I have absolutely no need to get out of that barn.” He didn’t even look at me. Instead, he flexed his fingers, clenching and unclenching his fists as he stayed silent.

“You said we were something, but you do everything short of just kissing me, and from where I’m standing, it looks like the last thing you want to do is be anywhere near me.”

“That’s what it looks like from where you’re standing?” He scoffed. “Then move.”

The thorn in his voice sent sharp resentment, even humiliation, through me. Was this all a joke to him? Was I just a joke? Just like I was to everyone in this town? The Gray who did not belong. The Gray who shouldn’t have been a Gray. The daughter of a poor, out-of-town woman, who should never have been much of anything, getting too high and mighty for her own good.

The thought of it, the feeling of another rejection, another in a long line of horrid things, clawed me from the inside.

But I would not break here. Not where eyes could see me.

Breaking was personal. It was quiet; huddled in the shower floor, or muffled into a pillow curled in the corner of a dark closet. Not in the open. Not in front of a mantle covered in memories and windows that looked into the valley. Even the rain didn’t deserve my shattered pieces.

“Fine. Goodnight.”

I turned to leave with my humiliation, but I was tugged at the wrist and pulled into a rock-hard chest. The scent of cedar and smoke filled my senses as thick arms held me to the massive frame of a man who walked right out of every fantasy I ever had.

I looked up into his molten green irises, their shine holding my gaze as his frown deepened, spreading to the wrinkles around his eyes and the divot between his brows.

“Fine? Nothing is fine, Melody.” My name on his mouth was a prayer, a plea. The kind that sent tingles through my spine.

But I wasn’t fooled.

I forced a smile as I did everything I could to remain still. I stiffened instead. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—pull from his arms. They felt too good, and I was weak. I wasn’t strong anymore.

But I refused to melt into them. Into him.

“You don’t want me? Fine. I don’t need to beg.”

His hand was on my throat, fury pulling his lips into a snarl as he pinned me to the wall. His hand, his body—his hips—pushed into me. Hot, thick, and unmistakable.

“If you don’t think I want you, then you need to open your damn eyes, woman.” He was close. So fucking close. I felt every labored breath and every bit of tension.

“You can’t even say it, can you?” I resented that, too.

The fact Greg couldn’t tell me he wanted me.