“Perhaps you could tell me why the backing-away every time we pass on the stairs? Avoiding even looking at me and when you do it’s like I’m the most repulsive creature on God’s Earth?”
“Not nice when that happens, is it?” he murmured.
“Pardon?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, Steven. If you want to accuse me of shutting down, fair enough, but at least enlighten me.”
“How many times?”
I pushed my weight off the doorframe and considered entering the room properly, but nerves kept me hovering at the threshold.
“The whole problem is…” He heaved in a breath and leaned on the worktop, supporting his weight on both hands again. “The problem is, I am sick of telling you what the problem is. Yes, I know you’ve had fucked-up relationships in the past, but we all have. That’s life. You’re supposed to learn from them, not blame every successive fuck buddy for not being whoever you wish they were.”
“I wish someone had told me that we were having a relationship, because I would’ve…”
“You would’ve?” Steven straightened and looked over his shoulder at me. “What? Treated me with a bit more respect? Acknowledged once in a while that you are, in fact, the biggest fucking douche I have ever met—”
“Hey, now, wait a minute—”
“And even being in the same room as you is turning me into the kind of person I would hate to listen to if I were in your shoes, so if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll forget the coffee and just go to bed.”
“Wait—” I hadn’t realised the kitchen was that small. In seconds he’d flipped off the kettle and crossed the room, heading for the doorway like he was just going to walk right through me.
Steven looked down at my hand on his shoulder and without moving his head again, lifted his gaze. I’d always had a weakness for men looking at me through their lashes and that weakness multiplied when it was him. “Yes?”
A pause, during which I discovered I’d completely lost the ability to speak. Touching Steven might have had something to do with it.
“You have something you’d like to say to me?”
“Don’t.” Oh, well done, Blackman. Monosyllabic and nonsensical. We are doing well today, aren’t we?
Thick black brows lifted and though it was aloofness that made his eyes shine, I wanted to pretend it was mischief. I wanted to pretend his very muscle tension wasn’t screaming get your hand off me. “Don’t? Well? Go on.”
“I meant, just don’t…”
Steven inhaled, held it as if he was going to speak, and let it go. That tension bled out of his muscles and I still didn’t take my hand away. “You don’t have anything to say at all, do you?” he finally asked, whispering.
I shook my head.
“You just couldn’t handle me telling you what a dick you are? Calling you out of being such a selfish, insular, anti-social, inept wanker?”
I cleared my throat. There was nothing I could say to any of that.
“And…” Steven stepped closer, not exactly trapping my arm between us, but making it slightly more difficult to break contact, as if I wanted to. “You don’t want me to turn the tables and be the one to back out now, do you? It really pisses you off that I walk out of the room, or avoid you on the stairs, or…oh…don’t creep into your room at night because I’m so desperate to get inside you anymore. Why? Shall I tell you why? Shall I articulate it for you, seeing as the great Christopher Blackman has been struck dumb?”
My fingers flinched against his T-shirt. Muscle-tight as always, doing nothing to hide either his shape or the heat of anger rising off his skin.
“Maybe you’re just not saying much because all the blood’s rushing to your cock, hmm? Oh, don’t think I can’t tell. You only ever notice me when you’re horny or pissed off at something. Both at the same time?” He shrugged, even deigned to smile, though only briefly.
“This’ll be why tonight’s the first time we’ve been in the same room for more than sixty consecutive seconds. Why you’re saying nothing. And why you’ve got a hard-on I just bet you’re wishing I’d do something about.”
Oh, sure, he smiled at me then, but it was smug. So—and I couldn’t believe I even contemplated the pun without laughing—so bloody cocksure he made my eyes water.
A tingle ran up the back of my neck, like all those times he’d made me shudder just looking at me from across the room, or when I got so horny thinking about him that my eyes rolled back in my head and I couldn’t hold my head up.
“See…”
Every time he spoke, his voice dropped still further and it was either a need to listen carefully, or a need to breathe him in, that pulled me closer.
“You’re used to being the one to walk out, or turn your back, or tell me to leave, or freak out. You have never, on any of the occasions we’ve been together, been able to stop yourself edging for the door or telling
