Page 97 of Your Place or Mine

“Fine.”

“And maybe hanging some string lights along the garden fence. Something warm. Inviting.”

I opened my mouth to object, but she held up both hands.

“That’s it. I swear. That’s all I’m doing for now. I haven’t touched the Rusty Stag. Haven’t even looked at it with a paintbrush in hand. So you can keep your dartboard with the duct tape and your haunted jukebox.”

I blinked. “You’re leaving the bar alone?”

“For now.”

My back teeth ground together. I wanted to be relieved. Ishould’vebeen relieved. But something about the way she was smiling at me, confident and teasing, like she knew exactly how much space she took up in my thoughts, set me off.

“So why are you in here throwing a damn press conference about hallway lighting?”

She tilted her head. “Because I figured if you heard it from someone else, you’d invent your own version in your head, and suddenly I’d be installing chrome and neon signs and replacing your whiskey with kombucha.”

I grunted. “You’d be surprised how many people want kombucha.”

“You’d be surprised how many people think it’s flavored piss.”

Despite myself, I almost laughed.

Almost.

But the way she looked at me, with fire and grit and that dangerous glint in her eye, knocked the breath out of my lungs.

She was driving me up the wall.

And I was pretty sure I’d never wanted someone more.

Her cheeks were flushed, her arms braced on the bar like she was ready for a fight, and her voice, steady and calm, was undercut with the kind of bite that got under a man’s skin andstayedthere.

“You know,” I muttered, leaning forward just enough to meet her eye to eye, “for someone who’s trying to make peace, you’ve got a real knack for poking the bear.”

She smiled. “Only when the bear deserves it.”

“Be careful, sweetheart,” I said, voice low. “Poke hard enough and something’s gonna bite back.”

She didn’t back down. Didn’t blink. Just lifted her chin and smiled like she had me exactly where she wanted me.

“I’m counting on it.”

I felt that everywhere.

My jaw. My chest. Lower.

Jesus.

She was going to kill me.

Or ruin me.

Possibly both.

The silence stretched between us, thick with static. The kind that prickled across skin and made it impossible to think about anything else. I hated how easily she got under my skin. Hated that every time she walked into a room, I could smell her shampoo or see the way her collarbone peeked from her shirt and itdidthings to me.

I cleared my throat and stepped back. I needed air. Distance. A fire hose.

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