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“You know what I think, Griffin? I think you’re afraid of what might happen if you let yourself feel anything. That’s what I think. I think the last time you let yourself feel something, someone got hurt, and you haven’t stopped blaming yourself.”

Griff bristles. I see it happen. He goes from frustration to stone. “Are you done?”

His words are hard. Maybe they should scare me. But he doesn’t scare me. Instead, anger shimmies over me. “No, I’m not done. I think you like me, Griffin Kelly.”

The only reaction I get is a muscle popping in his jaw.

“Maybe I annoy the hell out of you, but I think you care about me, at least a little more than a job. I know you want me. You told me yourself. And I don’t see what’s so wrong with us indulging in that so long as we’re pretending to be husband and wife. There’s nothing really permanent about what’s happening here.”

That last sentence scrapes at something painful, but it’s easy enough to ignore it with the furious standoff going on between us.

Griffin takes a step closer to me, making my stomach drop. Did I go too far? Is he going to pick me up and set me in his room? Slam the door in my face?

“I’m going to ask again. Are you done talking?”

“Why?”

“Because you talk too much.”

“That’s because there’s so much fucking space to fill.”

Griffin lets out a low growl. A warning. “Stop talking, Sasha.”

“Why?”

“Because if you don’t, I’m going to have to do something to get you to shut up.”

My stomach flips so hard and fast I have to press a hand to the wall to keep myself steady. “Like what?”

Griffin’s hand clasps itself around my throat—gently enough that I can breathe, but hard enough I can’t move. “Like this.”

He crushes his lips to mine.

At the altar, the kiss was electric. New. Shocking.

But there, we had an audience. Now, we’re all alone.

Griffin walks me backward as he slips his tongue into my mouth, his teeth scraping against my lips, clicking against mine. He’s hard and soft all at once; needy and giving. I cling to his shoulders as he presses me up against the wall, sliding his hand down to my clavicle and pinning me in place.

Then, just like that, he pulls away. For a moment, we just look each other in the eye, both of our chests heaving.

My heart pounds so hard I swear it’s thundering through the room.

He opens his mouth, and I hold my rapid breath. I’ll say yes to anything right now.

“I’m going to the shop,” he says. “I’ll be back in an hour so I’m out of your way when you’re doing that thing you do.”

My heart drops. Are you fucking kidding me? Also—“What thing do I do?”

“Walking back and forth in that T-shirt.” He lets me go and waves his hand around in the air as if to demonstrate.

Then he makes a final choked kind of angry sound and spins on his heel, ripping his tie out of his collar as he goes.

He doesn’t hang anything up. I watch as he tosses the tie on the couch, then veers to the kitchen, stripping off his jacket and throwing it hard over a chair. He practically rips open the fridge, pulling out a bottle of beer, which he cracks against the edge of the counter with a deft chop of his hand, tossing the cap in the sink. “There are more if you want them,” he grunts out. “Bottle opener…there.” He waves his hand at the drawers. Then he’s gone, down the hallway and through the door to his shop, which I’ve still never ventured into.

I watch the whole thing with an enraptured kind of awe.

I should be furious. But victory spreads through me even as I nurse the sting of rejection in my chest.