I knew I appeared it too, lording with several inches on her and so little safe space between us, but Scarlett didn’t look scared.
She was breathing just as hard as I was but not with unfettered restraint like me. Her lightened eyes trailed down my face in a heady observation, tearing my insides apart as she regarded me with the polar opposite of terror.
Fascination.
“You know what I want, because it’s the same thing you do.” A careless caress of one of her thumbs laid across the hollow of my cheek. A muscle in it ticked against her touch, a warning that went ignored. “Only difference between us is that I’m not so scared that my dad is gonna walk through the door with a shotgun and your pink slip that I won’t let myself have it.”
Wrong. I could give two flying shits about her father or my job right now.
Both could kindly fuck off, but letting her believe that’s where my reservations about kissing her were rooted was a hell of a lot safer than the truth.
“You’re right.” I swallowed thickly. “I won’t kiss you.”
“Just like you won’t touch me, right?” Her mocking browline arched, and I wanted to punch myself square in the face.
A smile tugged at her mouth as I felt my face fall into a grimace. It sank into an even deeper scowl when I realized seconds too late the only reason I even knew she was poorly hiding a smile was because I was staring at her lips.
Again.
Tallying up all the seconds I would spend kissing them that would equal out years of my life if I let myself have her.
“You know, for someone who says they hate being in pain, you sure do enjoy torturing yourself a lot over trivial bullshit.” Like a kiss.
A fearsome squall surged in around my bones, filling my body with rapids of rage.
“If it’s so trivial, then why are you so up my ass about it?” I snarled, finally conjuring the will to shake her off of me.
The liquor on the counter called out to my dizzy head, and I went to turn for it—except the sight of a perplexed squish to Scarlett’s entire face held me in place.
Her thoughts reflected inward at my question, mouth hanging open. She blinked in rapid fire, and I didn’t know whether to feel relieved or absolutely terrified that even she didn’t seem to know why she wanted us to lock lips so badly.
Shaking her head with the first impulsive reason tacked to her tongue, she let it spill with eyes sharp and sure.
“Because I want it. I think kissing you will feel really good, and I like doing things that make me feel good, James. You should give it a whirl sometime.”
The step of safety I’d gained myself less than thirty seconds ago disappeared as I closed in on her.
“Do you even know how fucking spoiled you sound right now? You think I should kiss you just because you want it?”
“No, I think you should kiss me because we both want it, and despite your claim, I’m the only one of us who doesn’t lie!”
She was already close to the wall behind her when I charged her into it, but her back still hit with a satisfying thump while her eyes flared lovely and wide. The sound of flesh knocking against wood reverberated through the cabin as my hands clapped against the wall on either side of her head, caging her with the breadth of my body.
“Correct. I am a liar. And an alcoholic and a selfish bastard who forced you on a plane because I couldn’t wait to get you the fuck out of my life, so why, Scarlett? Why do you want me to want you?”
This was another one of those times where she should have had the good sense to look petrified.
I was a six-foot-four to her five-foot-nothing tower of hard-lined muscle with shades of red screwing with my vision. Each razored breath was sharper than the last as my control thinned to a breaking point that should terrify her as much as it terrified me.
I was so close to taking her, I could scent the musk of her orgasm I caused still lingering on her skin, could see the life pulsing in her tiny little neck I’d already had my fist around once tonight.
Right now, if Scarlett had any sense of self-preservation, the room would be flying by her eyes as she and her lavender venom booked it for the door.
But lavender was a wild flower.
And so was she.
Scarlett bent the stem of her neck until her rose-red hair met the back of the wall, emerald eyes blooming with startling clarity.