Page 24 of Hard to Forgive

His voice quivered just slightly at the end of his statement. I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew that it didn’t really matter. Because he’d fucked up. The least he could do was apologize for his fuck up.

But the stubborn asshole was doubling down. I stepped closer to him. I could feel the heat radiating off of him and my dick twitched, which was the worst moment for it to do so. Because this was not sexual. The tension between us was anger. It wasn’t sexual, and I didn’t need my cock getting confused.

Even if it already was.

“You’re going to apologize to her, because you were a complete dick. You’re going to make it up to her, because that’s what agoodperson does.”

“Maybe I’m not a good person.”

“Maybe you aren’t, but you can play pretend.”

He looked taken aback by that response. I didn’t think he expected me to agree with him, that maybe he wasn’t a good person. If he was a good person, he wouldn’t have made Isabel cry. He wouldn’t be fighting the fact that he needed to apologize. He’d just admit that he’d been a dick and move on.

Instead he was being a fuckingbratabout it.

“Just apologize to her,” I ordered again. “And don’t tell her about this.”

“About what?” he asked. There was that dangerous imitation of a smile on his lips again. It contorted his face into something unrecognizable. It looked so far from the man I’d watched obsessively at work, from the man at the bar, from the guy I kissed in high school, from every iteration of him I’d seen before.

It looked fake and I wanted to knock it off of his face.

“About ourconversation.”

“Can I tell her about the fact that your dick is hard right now?” My eyes widened at the easy way he turned the tables on me. “About the fact that you’re obviously getting off on having me pushed against this wall. Does threatening people get you hard, Silas? That’s kind of fucked up.”

I took a step back. He looked smug, like he’d won something. The worst part was that he had. He’d gotten under my skin with one comment. He stayed where he was, but he continued. “Or should I not tell her about the fact that we fucked before we started working together? Should I not tell her about high school? There’s a lot of shit that I couldnottell her about when it comes to you.”

“You know what I mean,” I grumbled. I hated the fact that he had turned the tables on me. That he’d wrong footed me and thrown me off of my game. He’d somehow stolen control of the situation, and I wanted it back.

“No, I don’t,” he taunted.

“Don’t tell her that I came over. When you apologize.”

“I already told you, I’m not doing that.”

“Yes, you fucking are.”

There was a fire in his eyes as they met mine, setting me on fire from the inside. “No, I’m really not. So you can stop telling me what to do and acting like you have any fucking control over me.”

For the hundredth time that day, I lost control again.

I caged him back against the wall. He tore his eyes away from me, and I forced his chin back up, forced him to look into my eyes. We were too close, but I refused to back up now. I refused to let him win this one.

“Pretty sure I have control over you right now. Just apologize to her. What the fuck is your problem?”

He tried to jerk away from me, but he couldn’t pull back from my grip.

And then he surprised me by closing the small gap between our faces and crashing his lips to mine.

9

What the fuck isyour problem?

Wasn’t that the million dollar question? I’d been asking it my whole fucking life. What was my fucking problem? Why did every minor inconvenience feel like an apocalypse to me? I’d never had an answer. I still didn’t have an answer, and I wasn’t about to let Silas Morgan see how much that affected me.

So I did the only thing I could think of doing.

I showed him just how fucked up I was. I couldn’t pull away from his grip, but I could move forward and I did. I crashed my lips into his, throwing a match into the explosive gasoline between us.

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