“We get along.”
She shot me a bland look.
I couldn’t stop the grin that time and tried for a, “Sometimes we do.”
“We have nothing in common.”
“We have more in common than you realize.”
“Whatever.”
I caught a piece of her hair and wrapped it around my finger. “You know you want to.”
She hesitated a moment before she snatched her hair free. “You don’t know what I want. You have no clue. I want a guy who wants to be with me because he actually wants to be. Not that he’s forced to be out of some kind of twisted sense of responsibility.”
“Kat—”
“No!” Her hands balled into fists as she drew in another deep breath. “No ‘sorry.’ You have spent months being the biggest jerk to me. You don’t get to decide to like me one day and think I will forget all of that. I want someone to care for me like my dad cared for my mom. And you aren’t him.”
“How can you know?”
She stared at me a moment and then turned toward the door as if she planned on leaving. This conversation was so not over. I moved faster than she could track, appearing in front of the door.
“God, I hate when you do that!” Kat shrieked.
I stared down at her. “You can’t keep pretending that you don’t want to be with me.”
She stared back with a look of fierceness I found incredibly sexy and…and yeah, I respected her for that, too. But then that look faded as she pressed her lips together. Sadness had crept in her eyes. “I’m not pretending.”
Bull. Shit.
There had been hesitation before she had said that. There had been so much more that powered her words other than anger or frustration. She was afraid and she was sad. I got that. I had been a dick to her. There really wasn’t an excuse in the world to make up for that, and like I’d realized when I’d been holding her in my arms in the field, I didn’t—couldn’t—let her go. “You’re lying.”
“Daemon.”
I placed my hands on her hips and tugged her forward. The warmth of her body cascaded over mine, and I closed my eyes briefly, taking in a deep breath that tasted of Kat. “If I wanted to be with…” My hands tightened on her hips, and she swayed a little closer, until our legs brushed once more, proving that her words were at odds with what she wanted. I dipped my head and she shivered. “If I wanted to be with you, you’d make it hard, wouldn’t you?”
Kat lifted her head. “You don’t want to be with me.”
Oh, I had to disagree with that. My lips spread into a smile. “I’m thinking I kind of do.”
A pretty flush moved down her neck, and I wanted to chase it with my lips “ Thinking and kind of aren’t the same thing as knowing.”
“No, it’s not, but it’s something.” It was more than anything. “Isn’t it?”
Shaking her head, she pulled away. “It’s not enough.”
I met her stare and sighed. Her stubbornness was something I loathed and was incredibly attracted to, which I guess made me sort of twisted. “You are going to make this hard.”
She didn’t say anything as she sidestepped me, and I let her get to the door this time.
“Kat?”
She faced me. “What?”
I smiled, and saw her gray eyes light up. “You do realize I love a challenge?”
Kat laughed softly and turned back to the door, giving me the middle finger. “So do I, Daemon. So do I.”
Watching her leave, I had to admit that she looked just as good walking toward me as she did walking away.
I did love a challenge. And I never lose.