But, she thought, eyeing the stash of cupcakes and chips and pretzels and cookies, the spite carbs were totally going to be worth it.
He had put away all those carbs—okay, well, he’d efficiently lined up all the boxes, bags, and trays of junk food—on her kitchen island, a veritable smorgasbord of delicious sugar and artificial flavorings.
“Dani?” he asked, turning from the fridge, a bag of apples (See? She didn’t buy only spite carbs). “You okay?”
Her throat seized, a haze settling over her—a mix of terror, hope, being touched by the simple act, and then more fear, knowing this would only end one way, and desire. And still, all she wanted in that moment was to not care that she already knew how it would end.
She wanted to find the courage to see it out anyway.
All because a man put her groceries away.
She was fucked. Completely and utterly fucked. Because that bubble had expanded without her permission, had shot forward to encompass this man and . . . now circling back to the fact that. She. Was. Fucked.
So, no, she wasn’t okay.
How could she possibly be okay?
She spun, hustled from the kitchen, moving—okay, running straight down the hall and out onto the tiny little patio that was beyond the back door. Her chest heaving, she leaned back against the cool wall and sank down into a crouch, gripping her hair.
She couldn’t do this.
It was fucking reckless.
Playing Russian roulette with her heart, just offering it up for him to pull the trigger over and over again until the bullet would inevitably fly through the air and tear through the organ.
Like it had before.
Fingers on her wrists, gently but inexorably tugging them away from where they held her hair.
Ethan didn’t say anything, but Dani’s eyes were open, staring first at the ground, then at the toes of his boots peeking into her periphery. He didn’t say anything, just waited. Probably for her to give him some explanation for why the sight of him putting away groceries had caused her to turn and run.
Disgust slid through her.
Hating that she was like this.
So freaking bad at life, at people, at . . . normal fucking human reactions.
“I’m not good at people.”
The fingers on her wrists began moving, tracing slow, light circles on her skin. It shouldn’t be a sensitive spot, not when that area spent the majority of its time resting against a keyboard, but the gentle touches set her nerves firing, made goose bumps prickle and rise, the hairs on her nape lift.
“What do you mean, sweetheart?” It was a low, husky question, one said so carefully that it slid under her defenses, threaded its way right through the gaps in the mesh of her safety net.
She shook her head, tugged her wrists free of his hold.
Her skin tingled, even after his fingers slid off, a phantom imprint of his touch lingering long after he’d sat back onto his haunches and waited.
The silence stretched—a taut, uncomfortable thing—reminding her of trying to wrestle herself into a too-tight swimsuit in a dressing room, squirming and jumping, tugging and wiggling it up, until it finally engulfed her from shoulders to hips, squeezing tight on her lungs, her stomach. Nausea coursed through her, burned the back of her throat.
“For the record, I think you’re doing just fine with people,” he said.
Dani froze, then her gaze flew up to his. Laughter bubbled up inside her, escaping out through her nose in a semi-painful snort. She sank down further, her butt hitting the concrete of the patio, her head resting back against the house. “You’re delusional if you could possibly think that I’m good with people.”
“Just because you don’t interact in the same way as others doesn’t mean you’re not good.”
It took her a minute to puzzle that out.
Then her brows drew together, her head shook. “You really are delusional.”
One half of his mouth quirked up, but his tone was easygoing as he sank down opposite her, matching her position on the concrete. Its coolness was seeping through the fabric of her dress, making her shiver, or maybe that was just because he rested his hand on her ankle.
“Okay?” he whispered.
Throat going dry, she thought about the contact, knew that she should say she wasn’t okay with it, just out of principle. But . . . the truth was that his large, warm hand resting on the bare skin of her ankle felt nice.
More tendrils slipping in through the gaps in her net, winding their way around her insides, filling her with warm, fluffy cotton candy straight out of the machine. Sticky fingers, the puffed sugar melting rapidly on her tongue, its sweetness bleeding over her taste buds, sinking down into her stomach, and all of those dopamine receptors in her brain blazing happily to life.
“Dani?”
Still wrapped in that warm, fluffy dopamine feeling, she found herself nodding.
The other half of his mouth curved, joining the first. Then he stretched out, leaving his hand where it was, even as his legs bracketed hers.
Bare skin brushing hers, the rough velvet of hair-covered male legs making her shiver in the absolute best way.
“Cold?” he asked, eyes soft and curious.
Since she wasn’t about to admit that she was ridiculously attracted to those legs, to the dark hair covering skin that was tanner than she’d expect for a man who spent the vast majority of his time indoors, she just simply said, “No.” Then hurried to ask, “Do you spend a lot of time outdoors?”
His brows lifted, perfectly framing gray eyes that were such an interesting mix of the shade—steel-colored with faint streaks of blue, a charcoal outline around his pupil. He didn’t comment on her staring, on her random question, just nodded and smiled again. “Yes, after freezing my ass off in an ice rink for most of the year, I really like soaking up the California sunshine.” A beat. “Do you?”
Her teeth found her bottom lip, nibbling, a stupid fucking nervous habit that she hated, one she immediately
