Page 113 of Reckless
I stood by the window because sitting felt too vulnerable.
Xerses closed the door quietly behind us and then stayed by it.
“Say it,” I said before I could lose my nerve.
“Say what?”
“Whatever it is you’re thinking while standing there looking like a man who’s already decided something.”
“I haven’t decided anything.”
“You always decide things.That’s your entire personality.”
His expression didn’t change much.“You first.”
I laughed once.“No.”
“Yes.”
I cringed.“Absolutely not.I did not walk into this room to go first.”
“You walked into this room because I asked you to.”
“That is not the same as volunteering for emotional exposure.”I should probably tell him.I knew it
He waited.
I crossed my arms.“You don’t get to stand there all calm and make me do the emotional work first.”
One brow lifted.“You think I’m calm.”
“You’re vertical and not sweating.It counts.”
He shook his head and said, very quietly, “I stopped in the cave because something didn’t add up and you would not tell me why.”
I looked at the bookshelves behind him because looking directly at him while I said this felt impossible.
“Do you know how much I hate that you noticed.”
“Yes.”
I looked back at him.
“Do you think I wanted that to happen in a sea cave,” I asked.“With you looking at me like you already knew something I hadn’t said yet.”
“Please tell me.”
The gentleness in that nearly killed me.
I looked away again and laughed once under my breath because this was absurd.My life was absurd.
“I’m a virgin,” I said flatly.
He found my face with that same sharpened attention and said nothing at all for one long beat that felt like it could have held a year.Then he nodded and said quietly, “Okay.”
I stared.
“Okay?”I repeated.He opened his mouth to say something but then I shook my head.“Do not,” I said, “say one noble thing and expect me not to throw something.”
