Page 388 of Primal

She goes taut. Eyes blazing. “So, that’s it? Not even a ‘Sorry, I was a creep for spying on you?’”

The pills have turned my blood to ice. Numbed everything but the burn in my throat.

“Don’t recall owing you anything. I’m not sorry I watched you.”

I’d do it again. Every fucking second. Because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have followed her into hell.

She scoffs. “You got what you wanted, and now you’re done?”

My jaw tightens. If she had any idea what I really wanted …

“You have no fucking clue, Payton. This bullshit? Not it.”

Her voice cracks. “Bullshit?”

“Look—” I drag a hand down my face. “It’s better this way.”

“Better?” She laughs—raw, broken. “For who?”

“You’ll survive.”

Her breath catches—the way it did when my fingers were inside her.

“You asshole.” Another shaky laugh. “You’re still hiding in your fucking basement, too scared to even look at me. But yeah. Sure. I’ll survive just fine.”

My body reacts—some Pavlovian shit. She spits venom and all I want to do is pin her down, fuck the fury right out of her until all that tremble melts under my mouth.

I stay frozen. Not because I’ve evolved. If I touch her now, I won’t be able to let go.

“I’m not the one running.”

“Oh yeah?” Her glare sharpens. “Then why the fuck aren’t you chasing?”

My hands flex from memory—her under them, above them, around them. “I offered to go to Kristy’s funeral with you. You said no. I would’ve sat through every cop interview—what’d you say? You needed space. I brought you groceries and you told me to leave them on the porch like I was some fucking delivery guy.”

Silence.

“Every time I asked how you were, you texted me some one-liner shit.”

Her shoulders tighten. But she won’t back down.

Never does.

I shove off the desk. My fingers itch for something—my keyboard, a knife, anything to take the edge off.

What I really want is her. Against me. On her back. On her knees. I want all the sounds I didn’t get to hear when she came—when I could barely see through the static and my only goal was to get her the fuck out of there.

I stalk past her. Breathing in vanilla and rage.

A few steps more and I turn—

—we’re inches apart and she’s trembling as if I touched her, said the things I won’t say. As if she were fucking mine.

Her lips part, but she stays silent.

“Say it,” I grind out.

She blinks. “Say what?”