“All you had to do was tell me to stay away.”

“Would you have stayed away? If you knew how much I cared about you? How much I care about you still?”

“I would have tried, but you didn’t give me the opportunity. You took away my choices. I didn’t know if you went silent because of Richard or if you just didn’t want me. I obsessed over every little detail, everything I did, every word you said, trying to figure out what I missed. I left you those messages and sent all those texts… You made me something I vowed, after Brian, I would never be again. You made me pathetic.”

Aleck swiftly pushes off the counter, stepping in front of me, the tips of his shoes hitting mine. He lifts his arms, his hands balled into fists, and presses his knuckles into the cabinet behind me, boxing me in.

“You are not pathetic, do you hear me?”

Crisp pine, burning wood, and mint… Aleck.

His eyes hold me still, conviction shining from them. I know, even now, that for all my efforts of hating this man, I love him just as painfully. Like dying slowly from being poisoned just under the lethal dose. All I can do is breathe. He’s so close now, our chests grazing each other with each ragged breath we take.

“I listened to those voicemails every single day,” he whispers, a forceful energy radiating from his tensing muscles. “Many times a day until I saw you at Preston’s. I used them to remind myself that I don’t deserve you.”

“I doubt you’ve changed.”

“I agree, I haven’t, but now I know I’m determined to get you back. You’ve never seen me this determined, Grimm.”

“You got me into bed—”

“That wasn’t hard.” One of his hands leaves the cabinet and my body tenses in anticipation of his touch. His knuckles skim the outside of my thigh. “That was inevitable. As effortless as breathing, a magnet being attracted to metal. You and I were supposed to happen.”

His fingers leave a path of blazing skin as they trail up to my hip. When his fingers open and clench around my waist, lust punches me in the gut. I almost double over from the surge of emotions flooding me, but I lift my chin and hold my ground.

“Then I suppose we were supposed to end, too.” My bottom lip quivers as I speak.

Aleck’s eyes drop to my mouth. I swallow hard, balling my hands into fists so I don’t reach out to pull him closer. His fingers tighten around my waist, his thumb pressing into the tender crease between my thigh and pelvis.

I can’t fight my feelings. I can’t fight him, but I can’t let him back in either. I may be in love with Aleck, but I don’t hate myself.

He shakes his head slowly, eyes burning into mine. “We’re not over.” His deep cadence, calculating, hitting its target. He leans in, his lips touching the shell of my ear, and my breath stops. “I’m doing everything I did before you, and none of it feels like me anymore. I’m reminded more now than ever that before you, I felt like a tourist. Living amongst people comfortable in their own skin, feeling completely lost in mine. And now that I’ve hurt you, I could tear this city to the fucking ground with the weight of my regret.”