25. Chapter 25
I wake up furious.
Not groggy or confused, but furious in a way that rakes its claws beneath my skin. Sharp enough that I lie there for a full five seconds staring at the wooden ceiling before I even try to move.
It’s the third time I’ve been foolish enough to let him crawl off into my pants.
My jaw tightens and I roll onto my side, dragging the thin blanket with me and up over my shoulder. As if it can possibly shield me from the stupidity of my actions that I seem hell bent on repeating. Often.
Sucking in a breath, the cabin smells like coffee and him, and that alone is enough to spike my irritation another notch.
My bed is empty of course, outside of the lump my own body has made. Not that I expected him to be here. I haven’t quite puzzled Alexander out yet, but I have a feeling he’s not the snuggle and sleep in type.
Not that I care what type he is.
Sitting up, I scrub my hands down my face and glare to the room around me.
My muscles ache in that deep, familiar way that only comes after exertion and adrenaline, and it does absolutely nothing to improve my mood.
All it does is stand as physical proof of how thoroughly I failed to keep my damn resolve intact.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand, tugging on what remains of the clothes I had tossed onto the bedroom floor last night after our forest romp.
I ignore the scent of soil and sweat on them, hoping that Alexander might find an aversion to it since it’s become apparent my messy mind wasn’t enough to steer him clear.
By the time I force myself into the main room of the cabin, I’m already brimming for a fight.
Alex is at the small kitchen tucked into the corner, sleeves rolled to his forearms, and moving with irritating ease as he pours coffee into two mismatched mugs like this is a perfectly normal morning and not the aftermath of a felony.
It is a felony, I remind the inner slut that has it down bad for him. She’s in need of a solid shake and a reintroduction to all the red flags that we thought we knew how to avoid.
“Morning,” he purrs calmly. His eyes flicking up to me over the rim of his coffee cup as he turns to lean back into the counter. My own attention drops to the relaxed way he props one ankle over the other and grips the counter at his side.
“Don’t ‘morning’ me,” I snipe.
“Fine, I won’t ‘morning’ you.” He shrugs.
I scoff and stalk past him, snatching one of the mugs off the counter he’s set out for me without asking. “You’re insufferable.”
“Am I, though?”
“I would say kidnapping puts you in the realm of that list.”
He hums and watches me as I take a long sip of the coffee to steady the nerves that are wanting to shake through my fingers despite my bravado.
It’s strong and exactly how I take it. An accumulative mark against him, I decide.
I don’t even want to know how he knows how I like my coffee or if he’s just so good at guessing my habits that he’s got me all figured out by now.
I hate the way he watches me. It’s not smug or even hungry, but sharp and assessing.
The kind that says that he can somehow diagnose something wrong with me from the mere way I sip from a cup.
If it weren’t scalding hot I might be a little more childish and chug it.
I’m debating on the merits of doing it when I find another—more satisfying—way to poke the bear.
“So,” I start, leaning back against the counter to mimic his posture. “What’s the plan now? You keep me here until I develop Stockholm syndrome or—”
“Don’t,” he cuts in smoothly.
“Don’t what?” I snort.
“Use lazy psychology. You’re better than that.”
My eyes narrow at the hit. “Am I? Because from where I’m standing, you’re the one playing goddamn therapist while knowingly committing a massive crime. You can’t possibly think this is going to end well.”
He shrugs, “crimes are contextual.”
“Contextual?” I shriek and his brow arches. “You abducted me!”
“Yes.”
“You drugged me,” I tack on just in case he’s forgotten that part.
“I am aware.”
“You removed my ability to consent to being here.”
He sets his mug down slowly. “No.”
I huff, because he can’t be serious? “Excuse me?”
“You consented the moment you didn’t call the police when you figured out I was Plague. You consented the moment you ran in the forest, inviting me to chase instead of freezing.”
I’m clearly not the one who is in need of therapy.
He’s lost his fucking mind—again. I’m not sure if he’s going to be able to dig deep enough inside of himself to find it now either.
It’s hopped a ship to Europe, gotten married, and left my ass here to deal with the divorce and step kids I didn’t ask for from its previous marriage.
“That’s not how consent works, asshole.” I hiss out.
“No,” he agrees smoothly. “That’s how you work though.”
I scoff, convinced being perplexed is going to become a permanent state of being, and stare at him. Trying to work out why he acts as if this is just another clinical edge he has to add to the cube he is already building of me.
“You don’t get to narrate my reactions like that.” I sputter out. Not sure what that even means, but it sounded good in my head.
“Then correct me and tell me what you felt.” He retorts without hesitation.
That cracks further emotion in my chest. Not the kind I’m sure he’s hoping for, but anger surges hot and fast. “I felt furious and violated. I felt—”
“Alive?” He supplies.
My jaw snaps shut hard enough my teeth clack, my throat tightening.
“Say it,” he presses, stepping forward into my space. His head cocking in a way I once saw a cheetah do on National Geographic right before it ripped the throat out of the gazelle. “Say you didn’t feel it.”
I turn away, simply because looking into the depth of his eyes is jarring enough without him yanking threads of me open to see. “You don’t get to weaponize my responses.”
“And you don’t get to pretend you don’t have them. That’s the pattern, Sadie.” He explains as he turns to wash his cup in the sink. “You minimize and intellectualize. You survive and then act like survival was accidental.”
My eyes snap back to him. I see we’ve glazed right past the fact he kidnapped and drugged me and somehow turned the gun right back on me.
“Careful,” I hiss low.
“Or what?” He challenges softly, his back still turned to me.
“Or I’ll start pulling you apart the way you like to do other people.”
That gets his attention. I watch warily as he sits the mug down into the sink, rests his hands on the copper edge, and turns to look at me curiously.
“Go on,” he murmurs.
Well, don’t mind if I do.
“You’re not doing this because you care about my healing.” I start. “You’re doing this because you don’t like not being in control. And when I’m home in my bus or in my life, you don’t have the control you think you need.”
He considers that. “Partially.”
“And because I did something you didn’t expect in Pitch.
Which is insane by the way; basing your parameters of choice upon.
” I suck in air and continue. “You chose me because I didn’t give the typical response to your freaky little quiz.
So, for whatever reason, you’ve hyper-focused and turned me into something that is…
other. When I am the same as every other dick who’s walked into your office, just a different flavor of fucked up. ”
Silence stretches between us for a long moment as he lets those words soak in.
“First off, insane is a nasty label and we aren’t going to use it.” He states. “Second, I prefer to think of it as projection rather than hyper focus.” An undercurrent of amusement entering his tone that smacks every pissed off red button in my head.
“You’re deflecting,” I shoot back blindly.
His mouth curves. “You’re only angry now because you enjoyed last night.”
I open my mouth, then snap it shut. Heat flushing my cheeks as I refuse to break eye contact with him. “Don’t turn this back around on me. You’re avoiding everything I’m saying. Which only proves the point I just made.”
“You’re angry because you enjoy knowing exactly who I am.” He stabs the already gaping wound.
“You think dragging me out here is going to fix that?” I circle back to the whole felony kidnapping thing. “You think isolating me is going to make me healthier?”
“No, but I think it’s going to keep you honest.”
I shake my head, a bitter laugh bubbling out of my throat. “God, you really believe that.”
“I believe that you don’t know what to do with desire unless it’s framed in danger.” He pivots so hard that I nearly catch whiplash. I’m not sure at all where this conversation is really going. It feels like I’m taking shots in the dark and he’s already honed in on his target and refusing to miss.
“You mistake awareness for pathology,” I snap trying to recover. “I’m allowed to want things and still say no.”
“Yes and you can always say no, but I haven’t actually heard the word, little fox.” He chimes with an arch of his brow. My eye actually twitches as I glare up at him.
“Kidnapping me seems to delete the option to say no.”
“We’re past that,” He decides and waves his hand.
“We aren’t! God, can’t you see this is a problem?
” I breathe out and throw my hand toward the cabin.
I’m aware that he knows where we are, so showing it to him isn’t going to make a difference.
But he’s a brick wall and I’m the ball that slams into it only to be hurdled six feet back after each impact.
“I see why you’re struggling with it,” he replies. Slapping a bandaid onto an injury that is in dire need of triage.
“You do not get to rewrite reality because you simply deem something so.” I push again.
“Maybe not,” he says. “But I do get to observe it.”
I want to scream. I want to throw half the kitchen at this man because it’s not getting through the two-mile thick skull that houses his irritatingly brilliant mind.
“Then observe, but let’s make one thing very clear.
All you’ve done just now is prove that all you are doing here is chasing the reaction—not me.
And as long as you treat me like a lab rat to poke and prod, then we aren’t going to make it to whatever finish line you have placed. ” I snarl, stepping into him.
His eyes darken, but I seem to have caught beneath his armor with that last mark, so I keep going.
“And you don’t like that I’m not afraid of you.
Because if I’m not afraid, then this doesn’t give you all that power and control you crave.
It becomes something mutual, and I have a feeling you don’t know the meaning of the word. ”
“You’re wrong,” he states, quieter than I expect.
“Am I?” I huff.
“Yes, because power doesn’t require fear, little fox. It requires choice.” He uses in rebuttal.
I think my head might explode at the absurdity of this conversation.
“And whether you are ready to admit it or not yourself, you keep choosing me.” He adds.
I shake my head, stepping away from him this time. “No. I keep choosing to survive you.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
I throw my hands up, because I can’t.
“You’re unbelievable. You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he states again, and it almost sounds fond. As if he is genuinely enjoying this cluster fuck of an argument.
The tension coils, pulling us toward something neither of us should touch right now. And I feel it there beneath all that anger, even as I refuse it. I take another step away, picking my mug back up and draining the rest of it like a shot of courage.
“This doesn’t settle anything. I do not forgive you.”
“I’m not asking for your forgiveness,” he shrugs.
“And I sure as fuck don’t trust you.”
He smirks—actually smirks. “Probably wise.”
“Probably?” I scoff and gesture once more at the cabin. “Your track record is starting to take hits that it can’t come back from.”
“We’ll see,” he muses and meets my gaze evenly.
“I’m serious,” I deadpan.
“As am I.”
We stand there, locked in place, two predators circling the same fire. Neither of us willing to completely budge from the warmth it offers, nor eager to step right into it either to spite the other.
“I’m not sleeping with you again,” I mutter, because it’s the only ammunition I have left.
There is an abhorrent amount of silence that comes after that statement before his mouth ticks up once more. “You don’t sound entirely convinced of that.”
“Well… I mean it.” I grumble.
“I know you think you do.” He hums and leaves me in the kitchen to my thoughts.
Thoughts that feel a hell of a lot more tangled than they had when I first blew in here to confront him.