Page 37 of Stone Cold Touch

Roth didn’t respond. His gaze flickered over me, brows lowered in deep thought. The study was so intense it made me want to squirm. “So how do you think it’s interfering with my ability?” I asked when the silence became too much.

“I don’t know.” Roth finally looked away, scratching his hand through his hair. “But we’re going to have to find the Lilin the old-fashioned way.”

“We?”

His lashes lowered and the demure look was almost laughable, except it was incredibly sexy, which I kind of hated him for. “Yes. We. You and I. Us. Two peas in a—”

“No.” I held up a hand. “We are not working together on anything.”

“Haven’t we had this conversation before?” He took a step forward, and I backed up. “And remember how that ended up. We made the perfect team.”

I kept retreating, until my back hit the cool wall. “That was before you said I eased your boredom.”

The tip of his tongue moved over his upper teeth, showing off the ball holding the bolt piercing in place. Supposedly it wasn’t his only piercing—I stopped that thought. I so did not need to think about that.

“That was a jackass thing to say. I admit it. I tend to...say stupid things. I’m an ass.”

“I have to agree.”

His lashes rose and he moved so fast I didn’t track it until he was right in front of me, totally up in my personal space. “I didn’t mean what I said about Eva either.”

Something inside me—something stupid that needed to be stabbed to death—opened up like a blossom seeing the sun for the first time. I tried to quash it. “I don’t care.”

“Yes. You do.” He lowered his head, his lips dangerously close to mine. I locked up, the air freezing in my lungs. His head tilted, and my heart pounded in my chest. “It hurt you.”

“Why do you even care if it did?”

Roth said nothing, and my lips tingled from how hard he was staring at them. He placed his hands just above my hips; the touch light and barely there. I wrapped my fingers around his wrists and started to remove his hands. “Don’t,” he said, voice low.

“Then why?” I whispered, caving to the tiny spark of hope. “Why did you say all of that? If you didn’t mean—”

“It doesn’t change anything.” He pulled back, moving several feet in a blink of an eye. “We need to be friends. Or at least get along to the point where you aren’t destroying perfectly good fast food when I open my mouth.”

Just like that, he was a different Roth. Not the guy who’d held me weeks ago or done all those wonderful things to me. The question burst out of me before I could stop myself. “Did I mean anything to you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Roth said, voice flat as he turned to the steps. He stopped with his hand on the rusted-out railing. “It never did, Layla.”

11

It took a lot to push past what Roth had said and finish out the day. I didn’t get him, and it would be a long time before I could stop trying. Throughout my afternoon classes, I was torn between wanting to find Roth and do to his face what I’d done to his hamburger, and just wanting to stare at him.

Being a girl sucked sometimes.

I dragged myself out of school and to the street corner. The site of the old Impala brought a tired smile to my face. I’d almost forgotten about Zayne joining us for food, and while I’d been dealing with Roth, I hadn’t had a chance to give much thought to the fact that Zayne had agreed to hang out with us.

Which was so rare.

Deciding to forget about a certain fickle demon for the next couple of hours, I opened the door and slid into the passenger seat. I smiled as I dropped my bag in the back. “Hey,” I said.

Zayne grinned. He was wearing a ball cap and it was pulled low, shielding the upper part of his face. Some guys couldn’t pull off a baseball cap, but Zayne did and he did it well. “Where we heading to?”

“Little Italy—the one two blocks down.”

“Cool.” He checked the side mirror and then after a few seconds, he eased out.

“Thank you for coming,” I said, resting my head back on the seat. “I was surprised that you said yes.”

“You shouldn’t have been. I wanted to come.” He reached over, tugging gently on a strand of loose hair. “How was school?”

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