Page 158 of Make Me Mean It

Connor follows.

The door closes.

And suddenly there’s nothing between us except all the shit I’ve spent however long trying not to want.

Blood rushes loudly in my ears as I stare into the room instead of turning around.

“Don’t do this, Connor,” I breathe.

The second the words leave me, I fucking hate them.

They sound too much like what they actually are.

A plea.

“You’re avoiding me.”

His voice lands directly behind me, closer than it was a second ago, and my chest squeezes painfully around the sound of it.

I drop my head, a choked, humourless laugh dragging out of me as I scrub a hand down my face.

Of course I’m avoiding him.

What the fuck else am I supposed to do?

“I’m asking you not to do this,” I say, thicker this time, trying to force the words out cleanly and hearing them catch anyway.

Another step sounds behind me.

Closer.

My fingers curl against the edge of the door.

Connor keeps coming, closing the space like I didn’t just ask him not to, like he doesn’t understand that every inch he takes is pushing me closer to the exact thing I’ve been trying to stop since I walked away from him.

“I know,” Connor says softly, and he’s close enough now that I can feel the heat coming off him, feel the air shift when he reaches for me. “And I’m not listening,” he adds under his breath. “I learnt that from you.”

A laugh breaks out of me, pained and cracked around the edges because, fuck, of course he’d use that against me.

Then his fingers curl around my wrist.

There’s something tentative about the touch that makes it worse. Connor has never been tentative with me. Not when he’s angry, not when he wants me, not even the first time he put his hands on me. But now his fingers barely close around my skin, like he’s waiting to see if I’ll let him keep them there.

My breath stutters.

“Don’t touch me,” I grit out, yanking my hand free.

I turn on him, ready to hold my ground this time, and every bit of air leaves my lungs.

He looks wrecked.

His hair is a mess, pushed up in every direction like he’s been dragging his hands through it, his blue eyes wild in a way I’m not used to seeing. There’s something underneath all of it too, raw and vulnerable.

I don’t want to see that.

I especially don’t want to know what it means.

I swallow hard and force myself to keep looking at him.