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“They can’t know about us,” she said.
“I thought there wasn’t anus.”
“Damn it, Harrison.” Rowan fidgeted with the hem of her sweater. “Arden already suspects.”
“Does she?”
Rowan sent him a bored look. “Don’t pretend you didn’t see her Instagram.”
Genuine confusion passed across his features. “I’m not big on pretending, Rowan.”
Shit.
“Forget it,” she said.
He narrowed his eyes, and for a moment, Rowan was sure he was going to press the question. Then he softened. “Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not,” she muttered. “Maintaining this degree of awkwardness is hard fucking work.”
“I don’t think you’re awkward. Not even a little bit.”
“Give it time.”
“Fine. I’ll give you fifty years to try to convince me.”
The implication in his words found an old nerve. He’d dipped down deep and yanked it, like a crochet hook pulling yarn. She swallowed hard. “Harrison—”
“Harry.”
“Why?” She drifted backward a bit, opening space between them.
“Why what?”
“Why are you like this?”
A thoughtful twitch brought his eyebrows together in a brief frown, and his eyes went earnest. “You know why. Let me in, Rowan.”
“I tried to make that happen in February, Harrison.”
He was so close now, shetastedthe cinnamon on his breath. His voice dropped low, threaded with an undertone of frustration. “Do not mistake my self-control for lack of desire, because I assure you one is only barely able to overcome the other.” His pupils bloomed black inside silvery irises. “Ever wondered why I’m always ramming my hands into my pockets? I’m compelled to put my hands on you. It’sconstant.”
“If you want to put your hands on me, put your hands on me,” she snapped back. “Consider this my ongoing declaration of enthusiastic consent.”
“You said you didn’t want my family to know,” he said.
“They won’t know what happens in your bedroom or mine.”
His lip curled. He straightened. “I know what I want, and casual, meaningless sex isn’t it.”
“Casual doesn’t have to be meaningless. It means no strings,” she said. “No backstory.”
Harrison put a warm hand on her bicep, then slid it down to encircle her wrist. “I want the strings. I want to tie you up in mine, and I want to get tangled in yours.” His fingertips pressed lightly against the pulse point in her wrist. “Your body tells me things your words don’t, Rowan. Your heart is racing.”
She felt like Snow White being offered the poison apple. Everything he had was everything she once wanted. Only now, the chance to have it wasn’t worth the disruption to her carefully constructed equilibrium.
You couldn’t mourn the loss of something you never had.
“Anyway,” he said, his tone lighter, “I just wanted to say hi.”
