Page 28 of The Woman Left Behind

The bell rang again. “I saw you check the peephole,” he said, his deep voice barely muffled by the wood. “Open the door.”

“Go away,” she retorted. “I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Tough shit. I have something to say and it’s going to get said tonight, even if I have to kick your door in.”

“I’ll have you arrested if you do.”

“No, you won’t, because that would screw with the team.”

She knotted her fists and clenched her teeth, caught with the truth of that. Working as hard as she had to join the team had made the team a whole lot more important in reality than it had ever been in concept. The guys weren’t just guys, they were teammates.

She unlocked the door and opened it, but kept her hand firmly on the doorknob and herself planted in the doorway, denying him entrance. If he really wanted in, she wasn’t physically able to stop him, but she sure as hell wasn’t going toinvitehim inside.

“What?” she demanded truculently, trying to ignore the almost overwhelming physical presence of him, man mixed with the scent of rain and the chill of a November night.

He looked down at her, dwarfing her with his height and muscularity, his mouth thin and his dark eyes with that flat expression. “I came to apologize.”

“I don’t accept your apology,” she shot back. No way was what he’d said all right, and he couldn’t make it right.

“Then don’t. I waited in the parking lot to see if Donnelly left—”

“Stalkerish, much?” she muttered. “You could have sent me a text, so I could ignore you. I prefer that approach. Honest.”

“What I said—it was true. I should have phrased it better, but it was true.”

“Fine. You aren’t good with the English language. I don’t care. You can leave now.”

When she started to close the door, he slapped his left hand out and stopped it. “You’re going to listen,” he growled, taking a step forward so she would have to tilt her head back if she wanted to look at his face.

She didn’t. She kept her gaze straightforward, staring at his chest. He was so close she could feel the heat coming off his body, feel the fury and frustration almost boiling in him. A hard pulse was pounding in the hollow at the base of his throat, like a visible hammer.

He waited, but when she didn’t say anything else, he inhaled, blew out the breath. “I left out an important piece of information.”

“That you’re an asshole? I already knew that.” She couldn’t relent, couldn’t make herself retreat to a more civil position. She had never in her life been so angry and humiliated and, yes, hurt, and she hated feeling like that, she hated herself for being susceptible to him, hated him for knowing.

“It goes both ways.” His tone was deep and as full of anger as she felt. “You need to know that. It goes both ways.”

Then he turned around and left, his lithe stride taking him down two steps at once; he turned the corner of the landing and she couldn’t see him anymore, though she stood there in the open door listening to his booted steps, the sound of the outer door opening and closing.

Numbly she closed her door and locked it, then slowly sank to the floor with her back against the door, staring sightlessly at nothing.

He could have gone forever without telling her that. She wished he had. Because nothing had changed, except now regret was added to the pain in her heart.

Nine

Jina picked herself up from the floor, both literally and figuratively; sitting there was accomplishing nothing and she needed to finish putting her space back in order. If she couldn’t quite push him out of her mind, she could at least occupy herself by doing something useful.

Damn him,she thought yet again; that phrase seemed to come to mind a lot whenever she thought of Levi. Why hadn’t he just kept his mouth shut? She’d been doing a good job of not letting herself acknowledge how attractive she found him; it was that good old survivor instinct of hers at work. Levi wasn’t a man who would even be a comfortable casual date, much less anything more serious. She hated being so aware of him, hated the way her pulse rate shot up like fireworks whenever he was near, or when he spoke to her—even if he was barking an order. She could easily become obsessed with him, and she hated that kind of weakness so she hadn’t let herself, hadn’t let herself do a lot of things.

She hadn’t let herself daydream about when she’d blistered her feet and he’d tended to them, or how he’d ordered the perfect boots for her feet. Well, why should she? She’dpaidfor the boots, it wasn’t as if they were a gift. She felt silly for liking them because Levi was involved in getting them for her. The boots didn’t mean he cared, regardless of what he said about “it going both ways.” What he cared about was the team functioning as a well-oiled unit, all parts of it healthy and able to do the job. So she turned him on. Big deal. He wouldn’t let that intrude on the team dynamics, and she agreed with him. That was why she’d kept herself to herself.

She hadn’t let herself dream about him, hadn’t let herself wonder about his taste or what it would be like to have that laser attention focused onher,hadn’t let herself flirt, had been strictly business in her dealings with him.

That was what hurt. He’d slapped her down for no reason. Or maybe he thought she was weak, and he’d just been waiting for her to... what? Tackle him and ravish him?

Her cheeks burned with anger, because shehadentertained a fleeting speculation about the size of his dick. How could she not? Once when he’d squatted down, the angle had been just right and she’d seen that big bulge and she was human, of course she’d enjoyed a brief fantasy. Evidently the fantasy hadn’t been brief enough, because he must have seen something and it was her fault, because the other guys had also done some squatting and all sorts of other positions and not once had she checked out their packages. Just Levi’s. Damn him.

Her thoughts kept circling back to the same path, the same words, and finally she was so annoyed with herself she went out on the balcony without a jacket, to stand in the dark and let the cold damp air chase the frustration out of her brain. Being cold and shivering refocused her thoughts in a hurry, and for some reason put things in perspective.

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