The sting on my skin jumped to my eyes. I wasn’t prepared for the wash of tears, but I sure knew how to battle them back. “What makes you think you know a damn thing about me?” My voice was as hoarse as his was soft, and I hated that.
I wasn’t some quivery female caught in the storm of my emotions. I had my shit handled. Not only did I deal with it every day without flinching, I made money off my demons. I beat them back, again and again.
“I don’t know.”
He stared into the void between us, his fingers imprinting my skin. I didn’t push him away. I’d frozen like a statue, only feeling the warmth surge back into my limbs when he again raised his face to mine.
“But there’s something about you. I…recognize you.”
“From where?”
Impatiently, he shook his head. “No, not like that. I’d never seen you before yesterday, but it feels like I have. Like I know you.” He sounded breathless. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Only sheer pride kept me bolted in place. I’d never experienced an inexplicable need to escape before, not like this. He was like a living X-ray machine, seeing through me to all my internal organs. All my scars. I didn’t want to be open to him, but I didn’t seem to have a choice.
Despite my general cluelessness when it came to normal male-female interaction, even I knew what usually came next after this kind of conversation. The one secret vice I had was romantic movies. I scoured the bargain bins at discount stores and collected them like a junkie searching for his next fix.
In the movies I loved, after the smokin’ hot hero delivered a doozy line like Fox just had about recognizing me, the heroine got all big-eyed, leaned up on her tiptoes, and laid her lips on his. Then they had sex, and little birdies circled around their dopey heads. And I’d curl up in my recliner with the springs burrowing into my ass and tears leaking down my cheeks.
Watching. Aching. Wondering if I’d ever know what that was like, even for a moment.
But this wasn’t a movie, and I wasn’t anyone’s heroine. If I’d had to place a bet, even I would’ve seen myself as a big fat risk.
Snow meandered down from the sky, fluttering over Fox’s cheeks and disappearing into the stubble on his jaw. I nearly leaned up to lick them off. “I want—” I swallowed, unable to say the words.
He stepped almost imperceptibly closer. His hand tightened around my chin, his fingers still pinching slightly, giving me that pain anchor I craved. It was all I knew. All I understood.
“What, Mia?” He licked his lips.
My gaze zeroed in on their soft perfection with an intensity that matched the sudden pulse between my thighs. The words were right there. So close.
“What do you want?” he pressed.
He would give it to me. Whatever I asked, he’d offer it. I didn’t know how I knew this, but I did. His urgency to give rose in equal measure to my desperation to force him away.
My eyes lifted to his. The naked need I found there stunned me, but it didn’t make me back down. Nothing would.
“I want to fight you.”
Chapter Eight
Tray
I stared, certain I’d misheard. I’d been sure she was about to suggest something more…friendly. Like sex. Or even making out. Anything but this.
My hand fell away from her face. My fingers had gone numb. As her words sank in, that sensation crept through my entire body. “What did you say?”
“You’re a fighter, aren’t you?” She shook herself, adjusting the jacket that dwarfed her slender frame. Cocky attitude firmly back in place. “Fox?”
I struggled not to sneer at the stupid nickname. “Your poin
t?” No one would out-cock me, even if I feared the sidewalk beneath my boots would open up and swallow me at any moment. “I’m a fighter, and you’re a woman. In case you haven’t noticed.”
Her expression cooled until the snow that swirled around us contained more warmth. “Welcome to this century. Women can do everything men can. Including fight.”
I moved in again to see if she would retreat or hold. “And fuck.”
She held her ground. “So I’ve heard. Though I’m pretty sure they started doing that a while ago. Helps with the continuation of the human race and all.”