Page 57 of Crazy In Love (Secrets of Suburbi 3)

"You're soaking wet."

I swallowed hard. "Excuse me?" There was literally no way for him to know that I was aroused by his stupid body. "It's not my fault that you refuse to put a shirt on."

He smiled out of the corner of his mouth. "Wow. Not at all what I was referring to. You're drenched. Let's get you a hot shower and some dry clothes before you catch a cold."

Oh. I looked down at my clothes. I'd been rolling around in the snow making snow angels. And the snow had inevitably melted. I looked like a drowned cat. I was surprised Snuggle Muffins wasn't chasing me around the house. I shivered. Noah was probably right. I needed to change before I caught a cold.

He took a step toward me.

Not so fast, sweet talker. I knew what he was up to. And it was nothing about being nice. I lifted the axe.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked, his thick eyebrows drawing together beautifully.

"Doing what I should have done when you were tied up. Unless you want to go back downstairs willingly." I took two steps forward for every one of his steps back.

"You're crazy," Noah said. "You do realize that, right?"

I gripped the axe tighter. "I'm not crazy. I hate when you call me that." I really wanted to chuck it at his perfect face. And it would have made a much bigger dent in his skin than the knife had in the wood. I cringed at the thought of blood dripping down his chiseled abs.

"Babe. You're holding an axe like you're about to chop off my head. That's psychotic. Put it down."

Telling me that I was insane was not working in his favor. "I'm hoping it doesn't have to come to that. How about we go back down to the basement? I'll tie you up to the chair where you belong. And we can go back to normal."

"Normal? Being tied up in the basement isn't normal, Ensley. Nothing about this is normal." He gestured back and forth between us.

Him saying my name was jarring. Him remembering? Horrifying. I held the axe out in front of me. "March." I pointed the axe to the basement door. "Now."

> He put his hands up, and for the first time, I realized he was unarmed. His hands didn't look like shovels anymore either. It was like he was transforming in front of me. He didn’t even look like he was about to kill me anymore. He looked innocent.

But I knew it was just a ruse. "Where’s the knife?" I asked.

He lowered his eyebrows. "What knife?"

"The one you took out of the knife block. The one you're planning on stabbing me with!" I pointed the axe towards the kitchen counter.

"I don't have a knife. I never had a knife. And I swear I'm not planning on hurting you. I'd never hurt you." He licked his lips and dropped his gaze from my eyes to my axe. "I’m not the one threatening bodily harm here, Ensley."

Every time he said my name, my mind scrambled. "But...then where is it?" Noah was a liar. And I knew he was lying right now too. The knife was probably tucked into the back of his jeans. Hidden right above his firm booty. Stop.

"I don't know. But I swear I don't have a knife."

I kept my axe lifted in front of me as I made my way over to the counter. Had the knife just fallen or something? I glanced over my shoulder to make sure Noah wasn't moving and then continued my search. It wasn't on the ground or shoved in the wrong drawer. But then I found it on the drying cloth by the sink. Oh. I pressed my lips together. Had that been there the whole time and I just hadn't seen it? Or had he just placed it there to trick me? I drummed my fingers on the granite. The answer to that question was very important. Not that I'd ever trust Noah.

But he was looking at me like he was innocent. Like he wasn't dreaming of stabbing me in the chest with a knife. Now that I thought about it, I had used the missing knife recently. And I couldn't remember the last time I’d put the dishes away off the drying cloth. That chore was one of my least favorite things. Like when I did laundry, folded it, and didn't put it away for weeks.

It was possible that Noah was innocent. But if that was true, he wouldn't have been lurking around the house for the past several hours trying to scare me. I pointed my axe at him again. "If you're not planning on hurting me, then what were you doing lurking around the house being all creepy?"

"When you got back from whatever you were doing, I had just gotten out of the shower. You were screaming and acting cra...sorry. You just…you didn't seem quite like yourself, babe. I thought I'd wait it out until you calmed down. I wasn't trying to scare you."

I stared back at him.

"I'm sorry if I scared you."

It was weird getting an apology from him. I didn't know how to respond to that. Had I ever gotten an apology from him before?

"Look, if I was trying to hurt you, would I really spend all this time finishing up with the Christmas decorations?" He waved his arm through the air.

It looked like Christmas had thrown up all over the kitchen. The hand towels were red and green. He'd even changed all the plates over to a Christmas pattern we hadn't used in years because it was such a hassle. I glanced into the family room. It was practically a winter wonderland. "You...decorated while I was out getting the tree?" Not only had he decorated, but he'd done it fast. He was a much better housewife than me.

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