Page 79 of Into Pitch

I dress quickly, tugging on one of my shirts and jeans, then follow the sound of movement in the main room to find Alex standing at the stove.

He’s wearing a black tee, dark hair slightly mussed from where I had spent the better part of the night running my hands through it as he thoroughly picked me apart. Over and over again. Enough times that I can no longer deny that I just… well, I’m not entirely fond of the idea of leaving him all that much anymore.

It’s all just so… weird.

Neither of us exchange words, and I’m not entirely sure why on his part. Usually, he is barbing to figure out a way to thoroughly dismantle me. I’m not talking because I’m afraid if I open my mouth I’m going to say something stupid like I’m not as angry at him anymore. That some part of me—some really fucked up part—likes his attention.

Likes how much he pours into me.

We sit down at the small table by the window, the plates situated between us as they had been at dinner before. The food is good and that adds to the dissonance somehow. This man kidnapped me, held me captive, pinned me to walls with his body and his will… and now he’s sitting across from me like this is some warped reality. And I’m falling for it.

“I don’t understand how we got here,” I whisper finally, breaking the silence.

“Which part? Before or after you attacked me with a crowbar.”

“I meant after that.”

“The part where we fucked the first time or the two consecutive times after that?” He hums, entirely serious.

“Yes,” I mutter. “That part.”

“Does it even matter anymore, Sadie? Why we do what we do?”

Oh, so he’s the frustrated one now?

“Isn’t that your whole thing? You frame everything like data so that you can understand it. So what, why is that now out the window? It wasn’t sex, because we’ve done that plenty by now.” I snipe.

“It was efficient before, and now it’s not. It’s as simple as that.” He grinds back.

“It’s exhausting,” I counter.

He nods, relaxing back into his seat and doing that thing where his fingers drum off the table while he thinks. Searching for something, like he’s recalibrating in real time.

“I’m not very good at this,” he admits abruptly.

“At what?”

“This,” he gestures vaguely at the table, the food, the space between us. “Whatever this is meant to be.”

My eyes narrow on him, because this bastard drags me into the woods and now he doesn’t know what’s happening? The man who thinks he knows it all is suddenly up shit creek without a paddle? I scoff, but I force myself to study the tiny unraveling of himself. His pristine outer shell and the mask he wears slipping in a way that he can’t control.

And it hits me then, so sharply that it startles a laugh from my chest.

“I think you don’t even know what you want from me anymore,” I say finally.

He of course has an immediate counter. “I want you to stop trying to escape yourself.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.”

“I’m not asking you to forgive me or to understand me. I’m asking you to stay present.” He murmurs.

“With the man who kidnapped me.” I retort blandly.

“Yes.”

I groan, dragging my hands down my face. “You really don’t hear how insane that sounds.”

“I hear it, but I’m choosing not to prioritize it.”