I’m so happy I didn’t sleep with you. If I had, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from giving you everything you came here for tonight.
“Can I come in?” His eyes looked wrecked. Bloodshot.
I should say no. I knew he’d pour his heart out, and once he did, I wouldn’t deny him of anything in this world. He made me weak and exposed, and that alone should make me run for the hills. I stood there wordlessly, not quite ready to say no, but not stupid enough to say yes.
“Please.” He saw the hesitation on my face, but his voice was hard and coarse. Leave it to Alex Winslow to ask for something nicely one time in his life and still make it sound like a demand. “I need to talk.”
“Talk to someone else. You have plenty of friends.”
He snorted, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. From that angle, I could see the dark circles under his eyes. “Some friends they are.”
“Not my problem,” I said quietly, hating myself for every word. He’d been cruel to me, but that didn’t mean I had to be cruel back. There’s strength in choosing kindness even when you’re being dragged into the well of malice. I’d never been this way, and yet, I couldn’t stop myself. I was angry. Angrier than sympathetic. He knitted his brows and stared me down. I watched as his eyes turned in slow-motion from exasperated and sad to dark and interested.
“The fuck happened to you?”
“You happened to me. Unfortunately.” I was about to shut the door—he was sober, my job was done—but he slipped his arm through the crack and stopped me.
I was about to slam it anyway when he said, “I’d reconsider if I were you. This arm is insured for twenty million dollars. If I can’t play my guitar, a lot of people will be upset. All of those people you don’t want to piss off.”
Feeling lava bubbling in my chest, I kept the crack open, painfully aware of how his finger brushed the strap of my dress up my shoulder.
“Why are you mad?” His thumb rode up to my neck, to my pulse that quickened by the nanosecond. The change in mood confused me, and that’s exactly how he liked me.
“I’m not mad.” A chuckle died in my throat.
He pushed the door open all the way and sauntered in like he owned the place, doing his usual inspection. Alex liked to look and examine everything, like I was hiding dozens of dead bodies in my room.
“You are. You’re looking at me like I ran over your pet cockatoo.”
“I don’t have a pet cockatoo.”
“Yeah. Don’t. They’re a lot of work. Fallon had one.”
Fallon. Her name on his lips sounded like a profanity.
“I just don’t see why you’d even come here. You’re upset about Will and Fallon’s engagement. You should be dealing with it either by talking to them or with someone who can help you. I definitely can’t.”
He walked toward me, making me walk backward to avoid his touch. He wasn’t slow or particularly predatory. Just…nonchalant. When my back hit the dresser behind me, I finally exhaled some of my rage. He just stood there and didn’t say anything. Needless to say, that annoyed me.
“Say something,” I growled. His eyes tapered into slits.
“You knew.” He meant the engagement.
“I did,” I admitted, without missing a heartbeat. “Blake said you’d go on a bender if you found out. My job is to keep you sober. You are a job, Alex,” I reminded myself more than to him.
He pondered my words, rolling a lock of icy-blue hair between his fingers. Any trace of his sadness was gone from his face now, replaced with quiet, burning desire. One that runs deep and doesn’t end in your lower stomach, but buzzes all the way down your toes, kissing every nerve in the process.
“That is cold,” he said, his fingers sliding down my shoulder again—warm and rough and so callused—slipping the strap of my swing dress back down. “Especially for someone so warm. You really hate me, don’t you?”
“I don’t hate you.” I swallowed. A truth for a truth. Would he give me one, too? “Do you care about me at all?”
“Yes,” he admitted evenly without blinking, no trace of emotion on his voice. “I care about you.”
“Then let me go. Let me work here and stop this…this…” What were we? What the hell were we? It felt like more than a fling but less than dating. “This thing between us. You’re in love with someone else.”
“No,” he said, in the exact level tone, his body crowding mine further and further until the handles of the dresser dug into my lower back. Our limbs were entwined, but other than that, I had no excuse to the way my body reacted. Like it wanted to dance and fling itself off a cliff.