“You could’ve done it another way. You didn’t have to seduce me. Humiliate me.”
“I think you’re rewriting history, Ollie. As I recall, I warned you that I wasn’t someone to get involved with. Yet you fucking begged me to ruin you.”
She draws back as if I’ve slapped her, her cheeks darkening.
It’s not that I want to fight. Reducing volatility would be a far smarter strategy. But she almost sung to the fucking cops.
“Do you have any other questions before we return to the situation at hand?” I raise a taunting brow.
“There is no situation.” She retreats a step. “I followed orders. I did as instructed. Now leave me alone.”
“You dangled a fucking carrot in front of that nosy neighbor of yours. You were about to tell them everything.”
She crosses her arms over her chest, plumping those beautiful breasts beneath her pajamas. “No, I wasn’t.”
Irritation burns my veins, the toxicity thrumming through my blood. God, she drives me wild.
“Sorry, I forgot—you were acting.” I raise my palms in mock apology. “Please enlighten me on what that acting role was trying to achieve other than placing our freedom in jeopardy.”
She stares at me for long moments, eyes pained, brows furrowed. “I don’t understand you.”
“What can’t you get through that pretty little head, pyro?”
“Everything. How can you be the same guy as the one at the bar? You had me completely fooled.”
That guy had been real enough.
I may have deceived her, but I hadn’t lied. My moral compass had been pointing toward fucking saint territory for the most part. “I guess this is a great life lesson on why you shouldn’t throw yourself at strangers.”
She scowls, all that mouthwatering vulnerability disappearing in an instant. Her lips part, a treasure trove of delicious retorts waiting to be shared, but she snaps her mouth shut and starts for the hall behind me.
Smart.
Restrained.
So fucking beautiful.
“We’re not done here,” I growl.
“Yes, we are.” She makes to walk around me.
“Know your place, Ollie.” I block her path. “Because right now you’re grating on my last nerve, and I’ve been nothing but hospitable up to this point.”
“Hospitable? Are you kidding me?” She nudges past me, continuing into the hall.
I see red. So much mesmerizing, tempting red.
“Like you wouldn’t fucking believe.” I prowl after her, returning the nudge to regain my place in front of her, the hall shadowed around us, the air thick with tension. “I let you leave a hazardous crime scene so you could visit your dad in hospital. I relented to your pleas to return to work, then gave you privacy to fulfill your duties. And when we came here, and you squared those feeble little shoulders and raised your dainty chin in a fucking laughable show of dominance, I gave you your goddamn fucking space.”
“You think allowing me to see my sick father was generous?” Her tone hitches. “In the whole scheme of things?—”
“In the whole scheme of things you should’ve been dead the second you witnessed my men carrying a lifeless fucking body.” I take a threatening step toward her and grin when she retreats in equal measure. “I was being goddamn charitable in letting you live.” I take another step, this time angled, backing her against the wall. “And you best believe that’s exactly what I was doing the night we met.”
She plasters herself against the drywall, chin high, shoulders tense.
“I did you a favor and walked away.” I lean in, getting in her face. “Do you hear me? I did your cock-hungry ass a fucking favor.”
Her jaw ticks. “And now you expect a thank you?”