Chapter 19 #2
“Just because I—I didn’t say it, that doesn’t mean I’m attracted to you,” she said, fumbling over her words.
“Then what did it all mean?” he asked, his piercing eyes searching her face with the slow, intent perusal of a hunter.
“Because I was not simply dallying with you, Rayna, and I believe I made that quite clear. I did not hide the way I looked at you nor the way I longed to touch you. So why have you not refused me if you did not care for my attention?”
“Would you have listened if I told you to stop?” she snapped.
“Yes.” He narrowed his eyes when she scoffed. “I have told you before, I would never force myself upon a woman. Had you said I was making you uncomfortable, I would have locked my feelings in a box so that they may have never bothered you again.”
You didn’t.
He didn’t say it. But the accusation was there at the end of his sentence.
Rayna found herself at a loss for words as her mind ran in jagged lines, crisscrossing between all the moments she’d spent with Dominic, replaying their conversations, trying to decipher her own reactions to him. All while trying to deny his case against her.
Dominic was attractive. But that didn’t make it attraction.
It didn’t.
So what if he ignited sharp sparks of lust in her belly?
And it didn’t matter that his embrace was always warm and comforting.
Maybe she enjoyed teasing and talking to him and listening to his cheesy compliments.
Perhaps there were moments when his laughter and curiosity made the thing in her chest, the thing on the left side, do odd, meaningless dances.
And if the way he looked at her, with deep desire that bordered on yearning, made her stomach swoop and rise within the same breath, that didn’t mean she… it couldn’t mean that…that she…she…
She gulped as her mind stuttered on one blaring, obvious conclusion.
No. No. No. For fuck’s sake, no!
She wasn’t attracted to him. I’m not.
You might be.
I’m not!
Look at you, a historian denying the evidence.
But one piece of evidence allowed for multiple inferences depending on prior knowledge and context, so Rayna leaned all her weight on the POTeM project and all the reasons she couldn’t be attracted to Dominic to infer the only thing she could.
It was his face. His body. He was handsome and flirtatious, and it was fun—that was it.
“I don’t understand what you want me to admit,” she settled on saying with a lift of her chin. “That I think you’re good-looking? Yeah, fine, I do. But so what? That doesn’t mean I feel anything more for you.”
He stared intently for several beats before slowly—to Rayna’s dismay—his shoulders relaxed, and the softest, relieved smile touched his lips. “I do not believe you.”
She opened and closed her mouth dumbly as her cheeks burned. “I don’t care if you—”
He stepped towards her, and she nearly jumped out of her skin, every cell smarting with a need to run. “I could not believe you even if I tried to convince myself to. Because you are making that face again.”
“What face?”
“I have noticed that whenever I push you too far, you look upon me as if I have dangled temptation before you, but you are frantically searching for every reason not to take it.” She held her breath as he leaned into her.
“Because you wish to take it. And giving in would be rather easy, which is why you have to try so hard not to.”
In her mind, she was vigorously shaking her head. But in reality, she stayed frozen and mute, fighting not to drown under the certainty that beamed from him like neon lights.
Dominic gripped her upper arms in the gentlest hold, yet even the idea of shaking him off seemed ridiculously impossible. “Why must you deny us both if this is what you truly want?”
“It’s not.” Rayna had no idea where the words came from, but she was relieved to hear that a part of her brain was still functioning logically.
He sighed but smiled almost playfully. “You lie. Very badly, might I add, too.” One large paw skimmed down to her wrist. He brought her palm up to his chest, covering the steady, sure beat of his heart. “You want me, sweetheart.”
“And you think really highly of yourself,” she muttered, wishing it sounded more malicious.
His smile took on a heartfelt intensity. “Because I know with certainty, there is very little I would not do to prove I am worthy of you.”
He dipped his face, his weighted gaze on her lips as his own parted, and the sharp kick of her pulse jolted her out of her tranced state.
No. Enough.
She pressed against his chest with both palms, holding him back. “It doesn’t matter, Dominic.” Fortifying her shoulders, she shook her head. “What you think you see, or what you want me to admit, it changes nothing.”
“It changes everything.”
He said it like it was so fucking simple, and that pissed her off. Nothing about the tangled mess he was trying to convince her was worth the trouble was simple or easy.
She pushed against him harder as he weighed forward. “Dominic—”
“But even if it changes nothing.” He paused, his gaze going alight again. “Mark my words, Rayna. I will not allow Jake to have you. Ever.”
Mistake.
Because in her agitated state, all she heard was Dominic issuing her a challenge.
And all she wanted to do was prove him wrong.
Jake:
Hey
So I guess we don’t live that far apart after all
Rayna:
Hey
Guess we don’t
Which means meeting up is possible
Jake:
Does that mean I can ask you out on a date?
Rayna:
When were you thinking?
Jake:
Next Saturday evening?
Rayna:
Done