Page 12 of Make Me Sin (Bad Habit 2)
Humiliated, I open my eyes and look at him. “You don’t have to be nice to me. I get it. I know why you don’t like me.”
His reaction is so strange. His eyes widen, his nostrils flare, and his lips part, exactly as if I’ve surprised him. And now I’m even more miserable, knowing that I guessed right.
With as much dignity as I can muster, I remove my chin from his hand, and cover my mouth. “Let’s just . . . I promise I won’t talk to you anymore. I don’t want to make it worse. It’s really frickin’ embarrassing, but I’m sorry. I can’t help it.”
As I watch, his expression morphs from surprised to confused. “You can’t help what?”
I want to groan. Is he enjoying torturing me? This is awful. “I know about your . . .” I make a futile hand gesture. “Thing.”
With that one word, a wall of ice slams down between us. He leans closer to me, big and male and threatening. He growls, “And what fucking thing would that be?”
Maybe I should be scared. Or maybe I should be insulted. What I actually feel is scalding anger mixed with sweet relief, because now we can go back to hating each other and I don’t have to be so confused.
I pull myself to my full height, look him in the eye, and snap, “Your color hearing thing. I know about it. And I hope every single word I’m saying right now is making you want to barf up your breakfast, you bad-tempered, arrogant, antisocial bully!”
Silence swallows the shop. Even the noise of the compressor on the cooler seems to cringe in the wake of my outburst. I stare at A.J., breathing hard, trying to stab him with my eyes.
Understanding dawns over his face. Oddly, this makes his scathing hostility disappear in a poof as if it were never there in the first place. “You think my chromesthesia is the reason I don’t like you.”
It’s a statement, not a question. Humor underscores it. My anger falters, then fizzles, leaving me feeling even more wretched than before.
Clearly, I was wrong about my voice being the source of his dislike. It seems almost naïve of me now, to expect such a simple, innocent explanation.
But no. A.J.’s hatred of me is far more personal than the mere sound of my voice. I’m back to square one.
And now he’s grinning. Grinning.
“You’re a real piece of work, aren’t you, Princess?”
I refuse to answer him. I won’t give him the satisfaction. I can’t let him bait me. Like Jamie said, I have to show some class, and let it go. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to get my feet to agree with my brain’s command to turn around and walk away. We stare at each other in silence.
He moves closer to me, his gaze never leaving mine. His voice drops so low it’s almost intimate. “You want to know what I see when you open your mouth?”
He smells like something I’d like to eat. Something warm and sugary, like a fresh-baked cookie. My mouth waters, but I’m far too stunned by what’s happening to examine my physical reaction to him. My heartbeat skyrockets.
He leans closer. He inhales, as if he’s scenting me, too. He puts his lips right next to my ear, so close I feel his warm breath feather down my neck. It makes me shiver.
“Ask me what I see, Chloe.”
It’s the first time he’s ever spoken my name. Electricity runs through my body, setting every nerve on fire. My nipples harden. My breath falters. Even if I wanted to, I can’t speak.
He slowly turns his face, skimming the tip of his nose across the skin of my jaw. When we’re eye to eye and nose to nose, he whispers, “Ask me.”
The shop disappears. We’re suspended in empty space, alone in an endless sea of black. All I see are his eyes, gold and gorgeous and haunting.
“W-what do you see?”
In near silence, with barely a breath, A.J. murmurs, “Ghosts.”
All the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. My arms pimple with gooseflesh.
He turns and leaves me standing there, gaping after him like a fool.
“We’re ready for dessert, Nina.”
My mother’s voice jerks me back into the present. I’m sitting at her elegant dining room table with Eric sighing contentedly beside me, holding my hand under the tablecloth. My father sits to my right. Jamie is seated across from me, watching me in bemusement over the rim of his china coffee cup.
In the past four hours, I’ve done nothing but obsess over A.J. Edwards and his cryptic final words. I haven’t been able to come up with a single hypothesis that makes sense of them, or of his even more strange behavior toward me. I can’t wait to get Jamie alone and grill him on whatever else he knows about A.J. Especially any details about the woman in Russia who he sent flowers to today.
