She slowly turns her face to mine, and though it’s straight, I can see a little shock there, too. If she dares—
“I thought I’d stop by,” she says, a clear attempt to break the ice, but it doesn’t even dent the thick atmosphere. “I didn’t realize you had company.”
My jaw ticks, and I kick my feet into action before I boot the wall, heading for the kitchen. “Free fucking world, right?” I snipe, landing at the sink and running the tap.
“Right,” Lainey agrees quietly from behind me.
I watch as the water dilutes the blood dripping from my split knuckles and swirls around the plug hole. “Thought you were busy tonight,” I mutter over my shoulder.
“Thought you weren’t.”
My body stills for a beat, before I flip the tap off and grab a towel. I wrap my fist in it, and when I turn around, Lainey’s by the door, chewing her bottom lip. “I had a long day.” I shrug cockily. “Needed an outlet.”
“And when I wasn’t free, you called the next available fuck?”
“Yeah, because that’s how I work, Lainey. Didn’t you know?” I can hear myself. I sound like a fucking dick. Yet my self-admission doesn’t stop me from going on. I have a whole heap of stress and nowhere for it to go. I need to be shot of it before I explode.
I walk toward her, casual but threatening. She doesn’t falter in her stance. She doesn’t back up or even look away. Her face is tight, full of resolve. “I fuck women,” I say, coming to a stop a few feet in front of her. “I use them. Play the field, with no regard for the damage I might leave in my wake. But you get that, right, Lainey? You know how I operate, because you’re the fucking same.”
“I’m nothing like you,” she grates, and I laugh, because that is fucking hysterical.
“You are. You just can’t admit it.” My head snaps to the side with the delivery of one stinger of a slap, courtesy of one pissed-off woman. “Truth hard to hear?” I ask, smiling maliciously as I slowly bring my face back to hers.
I see something in her snap. “You want the truth, Tyler?” she yells at me, pushing her hands into my chest and shoving me back. “You want the fucking truth?”
“Yes. Tell me something that’s fucking true for once, Lainey,” I yell.
“I hate men.”
I recoil, my mouth snapping shut. I wasn’t expecting that.
“All of them. I fucking hate them. They use you, shit all over you, and discard you when they’re done.” Her hand meets my chest again, thrusting me back with a power that defies her small frame. Those eyes—the ones that hypnotize me—they’re raging with a fire even I am wary of. “And you, Tyler Christianson, are a prime fucking example of everything I hate.” She backs up, heaving with anger, while I remain exactly where I am. Motionless. Shocked. Her eyes dart to the floor for a few moments, the silence stretching, before she swallows and looks up at me. “So why the fucking hell do I like you so much?” she whispers, as if she’s run out of air, and the words are all that’s left.
I look at her, stunned. Her reluctance and distance isn’t only because I’m her boss, but because I’m simply a man. And not just a normal man. But a man that has every quality she hates. I recall some words she said the night I met her.
Not much to ask, is it? Just good, old-fashioned love. The pure, rare kind.
Did she have that? Or think she had it?
Someone really hurt her. Seeing her like this, hearing her words, it’s as though she’s shut down her emotions, cut herself off completely. She fucks men, they fall for her, and I bet she takes the greatest of pleasure in rejecting them. Kicking them while they’re down. Teasing them with something she doesn’t plan on giving them again. She's a sadist. I’m just another man in the stream of men who she’s hell-bent on hurting in some sick mercy mission after being destroyed by a man. What the fuck did he do to her?
So, yes, why the fucking hell does she like me so much? I know why. It’s that spark that’s knocked me back. It’s the chemistry I can’t ignore. It’s the overwhelming sense of contentment I feel when I’m with her. She’s as blindsided by it as I am, and despite this being an enlightenment of epic proportions—maybe not all good—it’s something for me to cling to.
“I won’t hurt you,” I whisper, and though I’m not really thinking before I’m speaking, because I’m acting on instinct, I know I really won’t.
She laughs and looks back to the door—the door Betsy just ran out of. “No, of course not.”
“Nothing happened, Lainey.” The need to explain has arrived. “She tried, yes, and for a split second I nearly went there, but only because I was angry with you.”