Page 87 of Howl for Me
His voice is low, dangerous, teeth gritted. “I’m a fucking loser, huh?”
I glare at him, but it’s hard to hold when he’s this close, when I can smell the lingering whiskey and something warm and male and him in the space between us.
“Then why do you care?” he snaps. “Why’d you even agree to something like this, huh?”
His face is inches from mine. I can feel his breath on my lips. My heart’s beating loud in my ears and I hate, hate how much my body likes this, how it leans in before my mind can say don’t.
“I don’t care,” I say, jaw tight.
His mouth curves, not amused, something meaner, something knowing.
“Yeah?” he says. “Sure. Keep telling yourself that.”
His voice is a whisper now, but it hits like a punch. That smile of his is pure sin, dripping with smug satisfaction, because he knows. He knows. He can feel the way I haven’t pushed him offme. The way my breath caught when he touched me. And I hate him for it. I hate how easy it is for him to crawl under my skin, to twist everything inside me up into heat and want and fury.
“I’m not trying playing house with you,” I mutter.
“Good,” he says, eyes locked on mine. “'Cause I don’t do housewives.”
The silence stretches, thick and hot and buzzing with something neither of us wants to name. I could shove him off. I should. But I don’t and he doesn’t move either. He just watches me like he’s waiting for something to snap. Like maybe he wants me to kiss him or slap him or both.
Maybe I do too. “I’m just trying to do my job,” I snap, voice tighter than I want it to be. “You didn’t seem to mind last night when I drove you home. When I carried you inside.”
His eyes drag over my face like he’s trying to memorize something, it feels like he’s inhaling me.
Then he shakes his head, slowly, like it physically pains him. “You don’t have to do this,” he says quietly. “You should’ve run the first day.”
I give a bitter laugh, eyes narrowing. “I did, remember?”
His jaw ticks.
“You carried me back.”
He doesn’t respond right away. Just stares at me like I’m a puzzle he can’t decide if he wants to solve or smash against a wall.
“Yeah,” he says finally. “That was a mistake.”
The words sting more than I expect, but before I can swallow them down, he keeps going.
“But the fucked-up part?” His voice dips, eyes heavy and dark. “If you ran out that door right now, I’d probably do the same thing again.”
My breath catches. I hate how that confession hits. It’s like he’s giving me a peek into something raw, something buried beneathall the sarcasm and snarling bravado. I hate how my body arches toward him again, instinctual and traitorous. The tension’s been building for five goddamn weeks, this unbearable back and forth, the heat, the looks, the way my skin feels electric anytime he’s within ten feet.
He closes his eyes like he’s barely hanging on. And I ask because I need to hear it, even if I hate the answer, “Why? Why chase after a plain Jane?”
His eyes open. And something in him shifts. He steps back like I just slapped him, like he’s sobering up from whatever haze just gripped him.
“I shouldn’t,” he says, tone clipped now. Cold. “I should let you go. Because you don’t belong here. You don’t belong in this world.”
Then he laughs, bitter and humorless, and grabs the half-empty bottle of bourbon off the coffee table.
“But if Hector says you’re here,” he mutters, already turning his back, “then I guess you’re fucking here.”
He disappears down the hall, bottle swinging from his hand, and slams the door behind him.
I flinch at the sound. The silence that follows is heavier than his body ever was.
Chapter Thirteen
