Page 58 of Fall Into Me

“You were standing on the counter.” I met her pissed-off expression with my confused one.

“I…that’s none of your business. Put me down.” She started to wiggle in my hold. It just made me hold her tighter.

“Not until you tell me why.”

“Fane,” she huffed, swatting at flyaway strands of her unbound hair that had fallen across her face.

“Are you really so stubborn you can’t answer a single damn question?”

Well, that sure as fuck was not the right thing to say.

I could practicallyhearAshton whispering in my ear that my balls were so far past being toast I should invest in a new pair altogether.

“I can’t reach the cupboards.” She ground the words out like they had personally offended her. “Now,put me down.”

Her hand was clenched into a fist, and the look on her face was one she’d given me more times than I could count since I’d gotten to town. It was a look that said she wanted to absolutely punch me in the face.

That was the first time I noticed that her cabinets were all the way to the fucking ceiling and half the size of regular cabinets. I mean, I’d been in this kitchen, actively fucking using it, and it just…didn’t register.

I frowned at them. “What’s wrong with your cabinets?”

She whirled on me. “There’s nothing wrong with my cabinets,Fane.” She said my name like it was an insult. I was glad she’d turned her head a fraction to gesture at them becauseI knew I couldn’t hide the way the corner of my mouth twitched that time.

This feistiness was definitely new, but fuck me if I didn’t like it.

“Why are they so high?”

“You really have to stick your nose into everything. The fact that you’re…you’re…” Her hands started to flail. “Defecatingall over my town isn’t enough?”

My body literallyseizedat the effort of holding in my laugh.

“Are you fuckinglaughingat me right now?”

“No—”

“If you call me ma’am, it will be the last thing you say with teeth that you grew yourself.”

“Noted.” I cleared my throat and composed my face. “Cali, why are your cabinets to the ceiling?”

“I installed them myself.” She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders, daring me to say anything other than that she did a great job.

“They’ve been installed correctly. It’s just they’re—”

“They’re what?” She was trying to hold on to the fury for dear life. I could see it. But I could also see the faint purple marks under her eyes that were new, right along with this need to kick me in the balls almost every second of every day. It was that, along with the conversation I heard between her and her sister, that made me shut my mouth.

I’d find another way to get under her skin, if only to find therealversion of the woman in front of me. Changed or not, I was determined to see her without any walls. Only then would we be able to lay all our cards on the table. To finally have the argument that was two years in the making.

“They’re straight. You did good.”

“I—” Cali cut herself off. “What?”

“They look level.” I gestured to the cabinets that, now that I noticed, werecomicallyhigh. “Did you lift them yourself while fitting them to the wall?”

From the corner of my eye, I watched her cross her arms and jut her hip out. “Yes.”

Well, that explained the size choice. Anything else would have been too heavy for her to lift on her own.

“Nice.” I nodded, turning back toward the bathroom.

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