“Then I’ll see you tonight.”
“It’s a date,” he said, then smirked.
“You’re such an ass,” I said with affection.
The temperature in the gym suddenly dropped twenty degrees. I realized that it wasn’t a problem with the HVAC. It was Nash standing next to me. We didn’t look at each other, didn’t touch, but my brain was sending out danger warnings like I’d just stumbled into the gorilla enclosure at the zoo.
“You gonna work something besides that mouth today?” he asked Nolan.
“Look, pal. You don’t need to get all pissy because I kicked your ass in the shoulder press,” Nolan said.
I had better things to do with my time than watch a bromance bloom. Like take an elderly bodybuilder to the grocery store.
“I’ll see you around,” I said to Nolan, pointedly ignoring Nash.
I made it all the way to the water fountain before I again felt the dark presence of Chief Nashhole. “You can’t ignore me forever,” he said, stepping in front of me. I stopped short so as not to plow into his sweaty chest. I couldn’t afford the fantasies.
“I don’t have to ignore you forever,” I said sweetly. “Once I wrap this investigation, we’ll never have to see each other again.”
“What about the wedding?”
Crap. The wedding.
“I can’t speak for you, but I’m an adult. Just because the sight of you makes me want to hit you in the face with a folding chair doesn’t mean I can’t pretend to tolerate you for one day.”
He bared his teeth and I wondered if I imagined the low, dangerous growl. “You just keep pushing my buttons.”
“And you just keep pissing me off.” The stare down lasted a good thirty seconds before I finally asked, “What happened to your face?”
“It ran into my fists. Repeatedly,” Knox said as he stomped past us on his way to the water fountain.
“Seriously? When are you two gonna outgrow that?”
“Never,” they said together.
I didn’t know which one of us had edged closer, but Nash and I were now standing toe-to-toe. I was close enough to reach out and trail my fingers over his sweaty torso, a thought that should have been revolting. But of course it wasn’t. I was starting to think there was something very, very wrong with me.
“We need to talk,” Nash said. His glare was giving me a sunburn.
“Sorry, Chief. I’m all talked out. You’re just going to have to find someone else to piss off.”
“Goddammit, Angelina.”
This time I very definitely did not imagine the growl. Or the hot, hard hand that splayed across my stomach and backed me into the dark, empty studio. It smelled like sweat and industrial disinfectant.
“What are you doing?” I hissed as he shut the door behind him and stood in front of it.
There were weapons in here, five-pound dumbbells and large exercise balls. Both could be bounced off thick skulls.
“Stop giving me the cold shoulder,” he ordered.
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting but it sure as hell hadn’t been that. I was definitely going for the dumbbells.
Temper burned like fire under my skin. “You have two options. Cold shoulder or hellfire. And let me tell you, Chief, I would be so happy if you chose hellfire.”
“What the fuck am I supposed to do?” he demanded. “You take advantage of my trust, betray me, and I’m just supposed to be fine with it?”
This time, it was me who closed the distance between us. “Are you even listening to yourself? I took advantage of you? I betrayed you? We barely know each other. Certainly not well enough for me to do either of those things. And much as it pains me to admit, you’re not dumb enough to let someone you just met take advantage of you. You came with that baggage packed and you were itching to unload it on me. Well, guess what, assface? I was more honest with you than I had been with anybody and you made me immediately regret it.”
I slapped a hand to his sweaty chest and gave a shove. He didn’t budge. Not even an inch. But his hand clamped over my wrist and then he was yanking me into him.
He was a wall of heat and muscle and anger. My own fury melded with his and everything went molten inside me.
“I hate how much I still want to be near you.” His voice was a low, angry rasp, like the bite of gravel on bare feet. Just what every girl dreamed of hearing.
“And I hate that I ever opened up to you,” I hissed.
It was the truth. I hated that I’d shared any part of myself with him. That he now owned a piece of my story. One that I hadn’t trusted anyone with in a very long time. I hated that as angry as I was, as hurt as I was, I still just wanted him to touch me. It was like my lactose-intolerant roommate in college who had a toxic relationship with cheesecake.
We were both panting, breathing the same air, inhaling the same anger, fueling the same blaze. The music and cacophony of gym sounds seemed so far away.
I wanted to punch him. To kiss him. To bite his lip until he lost control.
He dipped his head, then stopped just shy of my mouth, his nose brushing my cheek.
His hands circled my biceps and slid all the way down to my wrists. “Then why does it feel so right to touch you?” he rasped.
I almost melted against him. Almost threw every principle out the window and jumped into his spiteful arms. I didn’t understand it any better than he did. There was a flaw in my DNA that made his touch feel like home.
My heart was pounding against my ribs. Fight or flight. I wanted to choose fight. I wanted to give myself over to the anger and let it come spilling out. I wanted to see what would happen if we erupted together.
But that wasn’t who I wanted to be anymore.
As much as my body wanted the seething, angry man before me, my head knew it was a mistake.
“Stay away from me, Nash,” I said, mustering the frost of Antarctica in my tone.
“I’ve tried.” The admission was like an illicit caress.
“Try harder.” I yanked my hands free. In a moment of petty spite that felt damn good, I shoulder checked him on my way out the door.
“Couldn’t help but notice you and Nash haven’t been enjoying any sleepovers lately,” Mrs. Tweedy announced as she tossed a box of wine into the cart next to the value pack of canned tuna and the baker’s dozen of almost expired donuts.
You could tell a lot about a person by the contents of their grocery cart. Mrs. Tweedy’s cart screamed “chaos.”
“You certainly see a lot from that peephole,” I said. I was still feeling hot, bothered, and ragey from my run-in with Nash at the gym. I wasn’t sure five minutes in the ice cream freezer would be enough to cool me off.
“Don’t dodge me. My nose is already fully invested in your business. Y’all stand next to each other in a room and suddenly it feels like something’s about to explode. In a sexy way.” She added a six-pack of light beer to her grocery haul.
“Yeah, well. We’re not the kind of people who should even dabble at being together,” I said. We couldn’t even stand next to each other without it spiraling out of control.
The physical draw I felt to Nash was like a gravitational field. Inevitable. It had the power to overcome all the very excellent reasons why I should stay away from him, the number one reason being he was an order-giving, emotionally damaged dick.