Easy to fall back again, yes, but not impossible to stop it.
He moved his arm and tried to place the hard hat on my head. I stepped away and glared at him.
“You’re not touching me. In fact, stay away from me. Two feet,” I said, gesturing at the space between us. “Two. Feet. You got that?”
The amused look in his eyes infuriated me. As if nothing had happened between us. As if he didn’t leave without even saying goodbye.
If I expected an explanation or an apology from him, I knew it wasn’t going to come.
He crossed his arms over his chest, bracing his feet apart. “That’s going to be impossible.”
“No, it’s not. Just keep repeating it to yourself every few seconds. Like a chant. It should help your brain to remember it.”
A crooked smile appeared on his mouth.
I looked away.
“Here,” he said, handing me his hard hat.
“I want a new one. Something you haven’t infected.”
I was being childish. The way I was reacting to him, the way I was so defensive. I didn’t like it. If I was really over him, I had to show him he didn’t affect me. Not a bit.
But it hurt.
I heard him sigh. “Follow me.”
I scowled at his sexy back muscles doing their double sexy thing as I followed him down the stairs. I nearly tripped when I noticed what was holding his hair.
It was my blue hair tie.
The one that reminded me of his eyes. The one that I was wearing almost a month ago when he pulled it from my hair.
Confusion swirled inside me.
Don’t put any meaning into it. He probably reached for it out of convenience. He probably didn’t even know it was yours. For all you know, he’s a hair-tie thief. One for every girl he’s boned. Like Dexter’s blood samples. Get it?
Well, he hadn’t boned me, and I would never let him, so that would be a big, fat, stinking no.
I followed him as he opened one of the rooms below the loft, let me enter first. It was a windowless storage room—gray walls, hard hats, jackets, dirty boots, metal lockers, shelves with file folders, and a shower at the back end of the room. He didn’t seem to hear the threatening click of the door as it closed on us. But my body did.
I stopped at the door, feeling a sensual animalistic danger around him.
I watched as he walked past me and stopped at a locker. I had forgotten how tall he was, how he took up too much space and air in the room. His torso was long and svelte, his forearm muscles rippled and hardened as he pulled the locker doors open. Then he faced me, gesturing in front of him with his arm.
“Take one if you like,” he said.
When I didn’t move, he raised a brow.
Can you handle me? it seemed to say. A challenge.
I narrowed my eyes at him. To prove him wrong, I marched in front of him and regretted it instantly. In this room, where I was alone with him, his scent was strong. It wrapped around me, a seductive, cool, blue smell.
You have to fight it! Can’t give in, girl. Don’t give in.
It was quiet in the room, a little cold. That was why I shivered. Because it was cold. It had nothing to do with him standing near me.
I shook my head, clearing my thoughts, and searched the shelves inside the locker. The hard hats were located on the top shelf. I was tall, but not inhumanly tall like he was.