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My heart comes to a complete standstill when he sets his hand on my hip, and his pelvis touches my ass. My throat burns dry, and my brain short-circuits, unable to think of a way to get me out of this situation.
“That penance too?”
“That’s…” I draw a breath heady enough to fill my chest. Then I exhale again and go back to work. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“You could tell me we have a chance at friendship.”
I choke out a laugh and slice a pepper clean in half so we both hear thechop. “You had me, Axel.” I take a step to the left and force his hand to fall from my hip. “Jesus, you had mebeggingyou to see me. There wasn’t a part of me I wouldn’t have given you. But then you called me a nasty little whore and destroyed who we were.”
I slide my cutting board to the left and get back to slicing. I have a million more to get through, and no time for rekindling something that hurt as much as Axel did. “When do you leave town again?”
He chuckles so quietly, I wouldn’t even know if not for the breath that hits the back of my shoulder. “I haven’t decided. You look good, by the way.” He follows me to the left and sets his hand on my hip again. “As beautiful as ever.”
“Seven months away seems to have dulled your personality. Shame. At least back then, you could come up with a line that would have my heart all aflutter. Now, all you’ve got is Ilook good.” I slice through another pepper, but in my haste, I nick the side of my finger.
“Shit!” I hiss when blood trickles onto my cutting board. “Fuck.” I snatch my hand up and shove it between my lips.
“Here.” He’s calmer than I remember. More deliberate in his movements. Instead of panicking or rushing, he only pushes my hip and forces me to turn.
Backing me up until I can’t go any further, he tugs my finger free and holds my hand between us. Studying my injury with intense eyes, and stroking my wrist with his finger and thumb. “You know better than to use a sharp knife when you’re angry.”
“Funny.” I sniff, though it’s an angry sound, more than despairing. “I was doing just fine until you let yourself in.”
“And now you’re bleeding.” He brings my finger up to get a closer look. “Ihatethe symbolism behind my presence in your life and the fact you’re now bleeding.”
“Before you left,” I try to tug my hand free, intending to get a Band-Aid, “I would’ve called you out for talking nonsense.”
He brings his eyes up to meet mine. “And now?”
“Now, I think you should walk out of my life just as swiftly as you walked in. I don’t want to bleed anymore, Axel.”
He looks down at me from beneath long lashes, his stare intoxicating enough to make my stomach whoosh. But nothing,nothing, has prepared me for when he brings my hand higher and places my finger between his lips.
My breath comes to a standstill, and my stomach jumps into my throat. My core betrays me, slicking my panties and destroying whatever progress I thought I’d made after he walked out of my life.
“Axel…” My lips open and close, fishlike and stupid. “I-I need you to leave.”
His tongue caresses my finger. My blood, no doubt, flavoring his tastebuds. His hand wraps around mine, holding me captive, but he uses the other to reach up to a cabinet over my right shoulder. He takes out a small first-aid kit and drops it on the counter, selects a Band-Aid, and tears the paper open, all one-handed.
Releasing my finger and licking his lips, like he doesn’t mind the taste left behind, he makes quick work of peeling the plastic backing off the bandage and blowing on my finger to dry it so the adhesive will stick. “I’m sorry you got hurt.” Carefully, he wraps my wound and dwarfs my hand with his own. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”
“It’s just a small cut.” I yank my hand free and set both palms on the counter at my back. “Happens every day. Can you leave now? I have to—”
“I didn’t mean those things I said to you the day of Cootes’ funeral.”
My voice cuts off, but my lips keep floundering.
“I was in pain,” he pushes on. “Believe it or not, I was trying to save you. You don’t have to take my word for it, Sully.”
He bends lower when I refuse to meet his eyes. “You don’t have to listen to a single thing I say, but I just wanted you to know I didn’t mean those things. I was on a downward spiral. Mybiggestfear was never aboutmegetting injured or killed at work, but thatyouwould be hurt by it in the end.”
“Yeah.” I slide out from between him and the counter and start somewhere else. Anywhere else. “I’ve already heard all this, Axel. You can go. You don’t have to explain yourself to me anymore.”
“I didn’t want you to settle for your forever when you were nineteen, Hannah.” He turns and catches my wrist before I can go far. Tugging me back, he looks down when our chests clash and my lungs empty onto his lips. “I didn’t want that to be the only life you knew. Settling for the first guy you had a crush on, then resigning yourself to a lifetime of twenty-four-hour shifts and not knowing if I’d come home again.”
“Right. So the better option was to just leave.” I swallow the rage bubbling in my throat. The pain. The weariness I can never seem to shake these days. “You took my heart and smashed it, Axel. But worse, you took my self-esteem and self-worth, and destroyed them without remorse.” I push away from his chest and stand tall. Though he still has a hold of my wrist. “I have never, in my entire life, felt as small as you made me feel that day. As dirty. As worthless.”
“I’m sorry.”
