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His lips felt dangerously close to my ear. I tried to turn in his arms the way I had the night before, but he kept me from moving.
“Your self-defense makes you overconfident in your ability to protect yourself. You can’t. That’s why you need me.”
I gave up trying to turn. Instead, I leaned back harder against him.
“Okay. You’re right.” I pressed my ass back against Blake’s crotch and caught his quick intake of breath at the pressure. “I do need you.”
His chin brushed my shoulder, and his arms tightened around me, only for a second. Then Blake let go and took a step back to grab the beer from the ground.
“I’m glad you can see reason.” He brushed past me and went inside.
No, he wasn’t going to run away from me this time. He’d done that all damn day, and after the fun we’d had the night before, after that kiss, I was not ready to go back to him ignoring me.
I followed him into the kitchen. “I still can’t believe you pretended not to remember me at the airport. Especially after stopping that weirdo, it seemed impossible that you’d forgotten how you swooped in out of nowhere to protect me. Twice.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “It wasn’t out of nowhere. I saw you in the crowd before that bastard started bothering you.”
“Yeah?”
“You were hard to miss,” he said, like it made him angry.
“I can see you not remembering me if we’d just met casually or something, but—”
“Callie, you were unforgettable before I’d ever seen your face. There was no way I’d forget you after we spoke. I can’t believe you bought my ‘forgetting’ act. It’s just one more reason you’re not prepared to protect yourself. Too gullible.”
He didn’t say it harshly, but he didn’t smile the entire time. I knew he was serious.
“I’m not gullible. I’m just not so jaded that I’d assume someone might lie about such a thing.”
“I thought it would make this easier.” He took a step closer.
“How’s that going?”
He huffed. “Not great.”
“I’m going to Mackenzie’s wedding. I’m not as helpless as you seem to think.”
He scoffed and rubbed his hand over his short hair. “I just disproved that on the porch, didn’t I? It took me two seconds to grab you. And if I hadn’t let go, we’d still be out there with you struggling to get free.”
His face was close to mine, so close I could feel his breath against my skin.
“I didn’t reallywantyou to let go, so it wasn’t a true test of whether or not I could do it, was it?”
Blake leaned back like he’d only just realized how close we were.
“I’m done talking about this.” He walked past me into the living room to start closing windows and drawing blinds for the night.
“You can’t keep running away from me every time—”
“I’m not running away from you. The conversation’s over, and it’s late.”
The bag Blake took to work every day sat by the front door, next to the tray that held shoes and an umbrella stand. The top was open where he’d dug inside after he came home the night before. I caught the glint of metal, so I went to see, hoping to find exactly what I did.
A pair of handcuffs.
With his back to me, I slipped them out of his bag. And when he turned to go upstairs, so that he wouldn’t see me coming behind him in a window, I hurried up to him and slapped one side of the cuffs around his left wrist.
“What—”
