“Why me?” I don’t completely fall apart into an I’m-everything-you-despise mess. It’s not that I don’t understand why some men have wanted me, but I have no idea why Jake wants me.

“I don’t know.” Lines crease his forehead.

“I need more than that. Anything really. It can be the sex—which, since I’m obviously so bad at it, I don’t know why it would be that.”

He smirks.

“Are you bored? Am I a frivolous challenge? Is this a lesson you’re trying to teach me? Revenge?”

Jake’s head inches side to side.

“Then what?” I push at his chest until he stands and steps back. Running my fingers through my hair, I sidestep him enough to put him behind me because I don’t know what to do with this pull I have toward him. It feels dangerous to my heart. “You’re not the guy who needs a date to take to fundraisers. You’re not old and desperately searching for something—someone—to make you feel young again. I’m not a tree-hugging girl who works part-time at an animal sanctuary. You’re this sexy guy who could have that girl.” I turn back to him, letting my arms fall limp to my sides. “You could have someone who shares your dreams. You could probably have any girl you want. So … it makes no sense for you to want me.”

He rubs his lips together, nodding slowly. “True.”

I wait.

Nothing.

That’s it? Really? I cough a laugh and shake my head. “A toy. I’m just a toy to you.” Retrieving my room key from my pocket, I open the door. Swarley follows me inside. I grab his bowl out of his bag and fill it with a cup of food. Then I get him water from the bathroom faucet. Jake observes me from the door to the room, his back leaned against it, hands resting in his jeans’ pockets.

“I don’t know, Ave.”

I laugh again. “Yes, Jake, I got that loud and clear.” Rifling through my bag, I look for something clean. I have nothing that’s clean. Perfect.

“I like that I don’t know.”

My eyes close, feeling the warmth of his bare chest pressed to my back, his hands sliding around me possessively like they did yesterday.

“What if we can’t explain it?” He continues. “Maybe the attraction is that nothing about it makes sense. Who chases the familiar? Who stays up all night solving mysteries that have already been solved?”

“Have you lost sleep over trying to solve this attraction?”

“So much,” he whispers in my ear. “Your incessant fidgeting with your hair, your nails, your clothes, your lipstick … it drives me fucking crazy.”

I stiffen in defense, and he squeezes me harder as if his arms are saying “wait.”