Page 43 of The Pucker and the Princess
He doesn’t shove me away, but the way he won’t look at me is as clear a sign as if he had.
Pushing myself up to sitting, I clear my throat, run my hands through my hair, then reach for the cookie container and stand. “Well, um, I should go.” I feel my cheeks heating up, and I hate myself for it. Why am I blushing? I didn’t do anything wrong.Hekissedme.
And clearly he regrets it. So I’ll go.
Dammit. This is exactly what I didn’t want.
“Marissa, wait,” he protests.
But when I meet his eyes, whatever else he was going to say dies on his lips. His jaw firms, and he stands, giving a curt nod. “Of course. You have work tomorrow.”
“Exactly,” I agree. I hold out the open cookie container where a few cookies remain. “Want one for the road?”
His lips quirk in a half smile. “I’m not the one going anywhere.”
“Is that a no?” I raise one eyebrow in a mild challenge.
“No.” He reaches for a cookie, taking a bite without breaking eye contact.
It’s weird. This is weird. We’ve made it weird.
I can’t handle more of this, so I stuff my feet back into the slip-on shoes I wore up here and head for the door.
He follows me, which is normal, but I feel like the hounds of hell are nipping at my heels.
“Marissa, can we?—”
I whirl around, my hand on the doorknob, cutting him off. “Thanks for inviting me over for a movie. Have a good night!” I chirp, not letting him get a word in. I don’t want to hear excuses or explanations or worse—apologies.
Yanking the door open, I leave in big, ground-eating strides, barely keeping myself from sprinting in my haste to get away.
“Marissa,” he says again as I try to pull the door closed behind me, but he’s holding onto it, and I can’t.
So I abandon the door, lifting my hand in a brief wave, never so thankful as now that his place is around the corner from the elevator rather than right next to it.
I’m unwilling to take chances, though, and I go for the door to the emergency stairs just past the elevators. I don’t want him todecide to corner me while I wait to give me his explanations or apologies.
Instead, I take the stairs two at a time, grateful for the ability to expend the building nervous energy inside me. My phone vibrates in my hand as I make it to the landing for the next floor down. I glance at it, see Dozer’s name, and ignore it. It alerts two more times as I descend the next set of stairs, and as soon as I get inside my condo, I power my phone off without reading the messages.
I don’t want to know what he has to say. Not right now. That can be future Marissa’s problem.
Right now, I just want to take a shower and go to bed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Dozer
I fucked up.I fucked up big time.
Marissa’s avoiding me.
She raced out of here the other night like a bat out of hell. She wouldn’t answer my texts that night. And I haven’t seen or heard from her since.
I hate it.
The anxiety of waiting for her to respond has me wanting to crawl out of my own skin.
I keep staring at my phone, willing her to respond, but she never does. I’ve typed and deleted so many text messages. I want so badly to call her, text her, go to her door and bang on it until she answers, but I also don’t want to be a stalker.
