“Oh, really?” I feel like throwing my damn phone at him. I know he sees the thought forming, because he eyes the cell phone I’m still clasping hold of with interest. Like he expects me to actually do it—he’s just waiting on it flying toward his head—and he’s curious how the whole thing will play out.
“Mind if I sit down?”
I pull the collar of my jacket up, shuffling along the bench, pressing my body into the far end of it. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’ll go away if I say no, is there?”
Zeth smirks at this; he sits down beside me, parking himself way closer than I’d intended, given all the room I just made for him. “If you really want me to go away, Sloane, I’ll go away. I’m not a creepy stalker. And I do have some pride. There are plenty of things I could be doing right now instead of trying to make nice with you.”
Yeah, right. Zeth must have plenty of other women he ‘could be doing right now.’ The thought makes me feel like throwing up. “Then I’d hate to keep you from them.”
“So you would like me to leave?” He angles himself toward me, his closest shoulder dipping down so that his body presses in against mine. He feels warm through my jacket; having him so close makes my palms tingle with anticipation. I want to reach out for him. I want to feel the pressure of his skin under mine, but after what happened when we were having sex, him telling me not to touch—I don’t want to go through that again. It hurt more than I care to admit. I clench my hands tighter around my phone.
“Sloane? All you have to do is say the word.” His voice has always been low, but now it dips into some octave I’ve never heard before. It almost melts my bones. He speaks slowly, and I see that he actually means it—his eyes are unblinking, focused solely on me, and there’s a tension in them that sends a shiver through my whole body.
“I—I don’t—” How do I do this? How can I tell him? Even thinking about making myself so vulnerable has my heart pounding in my chest.
“They’re just words, Sloane. They’ve never killed anybody. It’s actions that are solely responsible for that. And right now, we’re just talking.”
God. Can it really be that simple? With him? I take a deep breath. “Okay, fine. I don’t want you to go.” I keep talking before he can even open his mouth to respond. “But can you please not be an unbearably smug asshole about it? I’ve had a really shitty morning already. I don’t need that on top of everything else.”
To his credit, Zeth doesn’t even bat an eyelid. “I’m giving up on trying to work you out,” he announces. The statement really knocks the wind out of my sails. I’d been expecting something scathing or imperious, not an admission of defeat. And he’s been trying to work me out? I’d have thought it was entirely the other way around.
“Too complex for you, am I?” I try to keep my eyes steady, but the way he’s looking at me, straight into me, has me breaking out in a nervous sweat. Zeth lifts one shoulder, still leveling me with those deep brown eyes. Eyes made for trapping a person indefinitely within their violence, but also in their brutal truth.
“Pretty much,” he says. “I keep thinking I have you all figured out, think I can anticipate what’s coming next with you, but then you prove me wrong. And I’m hardly ever wrong about people.”
“Does that annoy you?”
“You’re afraid of me getting bored of you.” He just says it. Like he reaches inside my mind and plucks out the most irrational, yet most real fear that’s bouncing around in there. And then he just says it, like him laying it out there in the stark light of day doesn’t make me incredibly vulnerable.
“No! No, I don’t—”
“Lies aren’t a part of this conversation, Sloane. They’ll never be a part of any conversation we have again. Do you understand?”
He doesn’t ask me if I understand in a way that might make me fear for my life. He asks me plainly. He asks me as though it’s a genuine question, and he needs me to agree to it. Any pretence there might have been between us dissolves like smoke.
“Okay. Fine. So this is it, huh? This is the part where we lay our cards on the table?”
Zeth shrugs. “Only if you understand. Only if you can stop fucking pretending for five minutes and be honest with me.”
I let that sink in. This isn’t a challenge like so many of our interactions have been. Nearly all of them, in fact. No, this…this is something entirely different. This is either the beginning or the end. Of what, I’m not completely sure. I guess I’m about to find out. “Okay. I promise. I promise I’ll never lie to you again.”