Page 26 of The Replay

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 bothersyou?" 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.