9. Chapter 9 #2
I keep the phone on him, but I make my face look as bored as possible again and gaze away. Evie is nowhere to be seen. I'm considering stopping the video and cutting my losses, when Dom and I are left alone once more.
I take a deep breath. I gaze at him.
He's watching me with a dare in his eyes.
I press my lips together and hold the phone between us a little stronger. "I'll just… you stay still."
With slow steps, I walk around him and record him in all three-sixty degrees. I take a couple deep breaths while he can't see me.
"I didn't know you would be here when I agreed to this," Dom says. "Or that you would be the one recording me. Watching me. Objectifying me."
"It doesn't bother me."
It's not a lie. I'm not upset, per se.
I'm fighting emotions I can't afford. They shake the walls around the most tender parts of me. In there somewhere, that includes the infinite tenderness I used to feel for him. Those feelings are too risky to touch.
"Right." He snorts. "That's what I mean. I'm so worried this might bother you."
Sarcasm drips from his words. People mill about, setting up for the photoshoot around us.
"So it bothers you?" I stand in front of him again.
I come close and do a small tour of his ink. Damn. I won't get to check the tattoos I remember from this angle. But later, when I'm watching this video before sending it to Evie, I might be able to zoom in on his back. Out of honest curiosity. Nothing else.
"I won't let it bother me," he says.
"Oh, yeah. You're trying to be aloof."
"Meanwhile, you and your newfound glass face are broadcasting everything you're thinking to the world."
"I'm not thinking about anything." I fake a yawn. "I'm quite over it."
Just in case, I fix my face as well as I can. Again. He rolls his eyes.
I pan the camera around the place. Evie is at the edge of the set, still on her phone, but back into the large room.
I film a three-sixty view, catching the people working around us, and ending on Dom's face.
He gazes at me with a curl still pulling down the corner of his lip.
Heat has returned to his eyes, now that none is close enough to see it.
"I'll take this as proof then," he says.
"I'm not asking what you mean by that."
"You still like what you see."
"Shit, you're cocky these days."
"You look a little hot, Miss Sinclair. Is the temp too high in the room? Or are you thinking about what's in my pants?"
I choke, but I hide it too.
"I don't think about you," I manage.
"Clearly." He smirks.
"Maybe you shouldn't let it get to your head. I used to enjoy your body. Who cares?"
"You care."
Damn him, but he's right. Paying close attention to Dom has me all bothered, and I hate it. I hate that I tried so hard to control it, and it didn't work.
But it's not a reason for him to act like such a petulant man. He needs to be taken down a peg.
I raise an eyebrow. "Can I still make you hard just by locking eyes with you?"
His eyes narrow, but it doesn't hide the way they sparkle.
It's a dare, because he knows what I'm doing…
and he likes it. Despite the people surrounding us, or how wrong it is to play this game, when we bicker and don't even like each other as much as we did years ago.
I stare him down until it becomes a stare off.
Good thing he can't see the way my heart beats fast. Like in college, when we were at the library, and all I had to do was give him all my attention— eye to eye, a small smile, wetting my lips— and he'd be gone, and we'd have to find a secluded corner to do something about it.
Is he getting hard? The possibility alone has my blood pooling in places it shouldn't. But, God, it feels good.
So I check. I lower my eyes and see movement in his tight playing pants that shouldn't be happening here, surrounded by all these people. Then lift challenging eyes back to him.
"If you could see the way you look at me," he utters.
"I'd see a woman who is in control."
He smirks. The sparkle in his eyes intensifies.
"I'd love to make you break." His voice comes out gravelly. "But I'm too proud to come that close."
"And I'm too proud to break. Though proving I can break you would give me a lot of pleasure."
"I would like to see you try." His eyes turn to stone. "It would balance the scales, to get to tell you no."
"I wouldn't ask."
"You'd rather go find someone else."
"Yes. Yes!" I hiss. "And we both know it. So why do we end up talking about this stuff all the time?"
"It's our unresolved history." He purses his lips. "That's all."
A different assistant approaches us to finalize the set up. They're about to start the shoot.
"You know what?" I say. "In this one thing, I think you're right. We're annoyed."
And it's a much easier feeling than hurt, or nerves. I could drown in both, if I'm not careful.
Evie approaches and I stop recording. I let it end the simmering tension of the moment.
"Everything okay?" she asks.
"Perfectly okay," Dom says with a saintly smile.
"I'll send you what I got later." I make my grin beatific.
Evie's eyes go from Dom to me, back and forth.
"Okay." She smirks. "Got it."
As soon as the photoshoot director starts yelling out instructions, I take several steps away.
When Dom braces his arms on the Swedish ladder and lifts his lower body with the grace of an acrobatic performer, I take a break and walk away from the set for a while.
The view got seared behind my eyes anyway.
It's still there when I go to bed at night, and go over everything I recorded.
I tell myself I'm editing out any parts that were too telling of the tension between us.
The kind that would have Evie assuming things neither Dom or I want her to think.
But after I'm done, I can only send half the material to Evie and, while I should have deleted the rest, I don't.
I sigh. Where we used to crave learning everything about one another, now we argue.
Where the idea of seducing each other was a comforting, all-consuming fire, now it's fuel in our verbal battles.
Where he used to hold me and gaze at me like I was the moon, he now looks at me like I'm a burning sun searing his skin.
Things are nothing like they used to be. The Dom of today is a far cry from the man I adored so intensely, back when not seeing him for a single day caused me trouble breathing.
I should be thrilled he's making it easy to forget how much I loved him.
It will help when we're forced to spend time around each other.
Without that melancholy following me everywhere, I'll get to focus on work.
I'll impress everyone— Selena as the Strike's owner and my parents and hell, even the mayor if he accepts the invite to the gala in December.
Then I'll leave with the satisfaction of everything I've achieved and maybe, just maybe, I will let life surprise me one day.
Until then… who knows. I'll have to keep focusing on survival.
Especially when I get Evie's text.
Evie: I sent you an invite for a meeting in a few days! I heard from the university and I think this project would be a great fit for you and Dom. You'll see! I'm excited.
Dread weighs down my chest. I put the phone down. Something tells me Dom and I failed at preventing their meddling.