The Price of Inertia (The Seven Sins #4) - Lily Zante Page 0,48

bread, wishing I had something else to do, something that would require more of my concentration so that I wouldn’t have to look up.

“You okay?” he asks.

I nod. He seems to want to talk, but I am wary. “I forgot to write a note. I’m sorry. I had to rush off.”

“I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“You didn’t.” He thinks I left the house because he upset me. His eyes are dark, and the circles underneath are just as dark. He looks disheveled. A mess, compared to how he looked fresh out of the shower this morning.

“Did you write all day?” I can’t help but blurt out, because he looks as if he’s been cooped up at his desk writing feverishly all day, and it that’s the case, then his junk fest is well earned.

“I didn’t write. I couldn’t.”

I wonder what he thought of me being gone for the entire day. I feel the need to explain. “Something came up. I had to rush off. I’m sorry I didn’t—”

“You don’t have to keep apologizing.” His voice is strained, but I can’t tell if he’s really tired, or annoyed, or just hungry. Or maybe all three.

It has been a day that has shattered my emotions. I am so physically exhausted from the melodrama of the last twelve hours, that all I want to do is be left alone to eat my sandwich in peace, but as I stand here talking to a rough looking Ward, I can’t help but wonder what he’s been doing all afternoon.

I glance at the litter on the floor of the TV room. He’s eaten, but it’s a whole heap of junk food.

“Are you hungry? I can make you something to eat if—”

“I can make it myself. Even though I’m lazy, and a slob, and rude, I can feed myself.”

He’s calling me out. My words have obviously hit deep. “You were getting good with your healthy eating,” I comment, ignoring his pointed remarks.

“I was.”

“Then what happened?” Is he blaming me for what happened? For losing his pen and causing a disruption to his creative flow. I need to clarify something. “I didn’t steal your pen.”

“I didn’t say you stole it. I don’t have you down for a thief.”

“Good, because I’m not.” Let me get that straight. I want to know why he’s so adamant that I misplaced it, but I’m also too tired to start another fight.

“Where did you go?” he asks. “To see your friend again?” His voice is hoarse and his curiosity surprises me. The questions hang in the sultry charged air between us. I don’t want to open up. I don’t want him to know anything about me, because I sense a current of something between us, something wild and electrifying. What he’s asking isn’t run-of-the-mill polite conversation. There is subtext beneath his words.

I don’t understand my new pull towards this man, but it’s there, the throbbing between my legs starting up again, a slow, low, thrum, subtle enough that I can pretend it doesn’t exist, yet potent enough to alert me. I’m heading into dangerous territory if I can’t stop myself from reacting to him.

“My friend?”

“Jamie.”

I lift my chin and find myself fall, fall, falling into his dark-as-night-eyes. I could take up residence in them. Sink deep, deep, deeper and find myself in his core. Maybe then I would get a better understanding of him. It feels like I can chisel away at his exterior for years and still not know the real him.

And yet … he’s seen me almost half naked.

I’ve seen his boner.

I would give anything to know what he’s thinking right now.

This isn’t right, or normal, me standing here with a ham sandwich that I am ravenous to eat, and him watching me with a predatory glare.

Food isn’t the thing that’s on my mind right now. “I didn’t go and see Jamie. Why?”

He folds his arms, getting all defensive. “I wondered if you went running to him and told him what happened between us.”

“First of all, I don’t go running to him, and secondly, nothing happened between us.”

We fall silent. I take a bite of my sandwich, but now I’m conscious of chewing, of him watching me eat. “Did you write?” I ask when I’ve swallowed.

“I can’t. I’m stuck.”

“You get that stuck without your pen?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me,” I say, with a little more need in my voice than I would like.

“Today’s not been a good day,” he replies, but it’s not a growl, not what I’m expecting. He seems tired