I should’ve kept my mouth shut and let him blab his justifications while I bided my time. I should’ve looked for an escape. I should’ve brushed away his forthcoming apology because, the truth was, he owed me nothing.

I had no right to be upset.

I was the one who’d said it was a one-time—or two-time—thing.

I was the one who’d said it couldn’t happen again. Not dinner or hanging out or anything else.

He’d clearly listened to me.

And, for whatever reason, that made me mad.

Madder.

Whipping around to face him, I didn’t try to subtly unlock my door behind my back. I didn’t disassociate while he talked. I didn’t shrink away.

I let my anger fly.

“Because I’m not. The only stupid decision I’ve made lately was to stop fighting,” I gestured back and forth between us, “whatever we have.” I scowled. “Whatever we had between us, as in you and me. You didn’t have to leave me yesterday to bring another woman home. I wanted to…” He tried again to speak, but I was too fired up to listen. “God, it all makes sense. I wondered why you didn’t try to fuck me, but why would you? Not when you can have—”

Ward’s hand covered my mouth, cutting off the unstoppable verbal geyser spewing from my filterless brain. The feel of it didn’t make me panic.

It made me pissed—more pissed.

So I bit his palm.

He didn’t even flinch, keeping his hand over my mouth. “Was showering ’cause I spent all day trekking my ass through the woods. And if you’d gimme a second, I can explain Katarzyna.”

Katarzyna.

Even her name is gorgeous.

Not like…

“Ffufff offff,” I swore, the curse getting muffled against him.

“Okay, so I got a Mac kink, a kink for you saying kink, and one for hearing you talk about us fuckin’.”

“Gffo ahhwy.”

“My club rescued Katarzyna from a bad situation. I’m not fuckin’ her. Don’t wanna fuck her. Somethin’ happened, she’s sure as shit not gonna tell me about it, so I brought her here to talk to you.” He scowled down at me. “I would’ve called with a heads-up, but you still haven’t given me your damn number.”

Giving him my number would’ve gone against the distance I’d been determined to keep, so I hadn’t.

It’d also seemed pointless since he came over every night anyway.

Which, coincidentally, also went against the distance I’d been determined to keep.