The Dating Experiment (The Experiment, #2)(33)

“Fine. Come in, but I need to get changed.”

“Don’t get changed on my account.”

“I’m getting changed.” I made sure my tone was more assertive, then left him standing in the doorway as I turned and stalked toward my room.

There was no way I was having this conversation in my fifteen-year-old pajamas.

Especially since, yes, this was see-through over my boobs.

***

I walked back into the kitchen.

Sans unicorn. Plus bra. Plus clean panties.

Sans visible nipples.

I was winning so far.

“All right,” I said, putting my hands on my hips. “You’re here to talk. Let’s talk.”

“Do you have any food?” Dom said, head inside my fridge. “I skipped lunch.”

“It’s past lunch?”

“It’s two-thirty. What have you been doing all day in your teenage pajamas?”

I folded my arms over my chest. “Googling the most efficient ways to murder someone and watching Forensic Files on Netflix.”

“Find anything good?” he asked, pulling open my fruit drawer. “Why is there bacon in your fruit drawer?”

“Bacon is fruit.”

“Bacon couldn’t be further from fruit.”

“They have the same nutritional value in my eyes. God, next time you’ll tell me that wine isn’t really grape juice.”

“It’s not pure grape juice,” he said, shutting the drawer.

“Watch your filthy mouth.”

Dom snorted. “If you think that’s filthy, you should hear me during football.”

“Since when did you play football?”

“I don’t,” he said, closing the fridge. “But I watch it, and I’m a better coach than this city’s damn team has right now,” he finished on a grumble.

“Great. A couch coach. Just what the world needs more of.” I sighed, passing him to the fridge. I pulled out the carton of orange juice and grabbed a glass. “Can you cut to the chase? I was working before you interrupted me.”

“You were watching Friends.”

“On mute. It doesn’t count if it was on mute.” I put the juice back in the fridge and cradled the glass in front of me. “And yes, I do know why you’re here. No, I don’t have the patience for this bullshit small-talk, so you have two choices.”

“Do I, now?”

“Yes. You explain why you kissed me, or you fuck off.”

Apparently, I could be confrontational about this. There was the Chloe I knew and loved. She was in there somewhere, just waiting to be pissed off by Dominic Austin.

Dom’s lips twitched to the side, and he perched on my dining table. He crossed his arms over his chest and met my eyes, but I was momentarily distracted by the way his biceps pushed against the light gray material of his shirt.

“You’re awfully confrontational for someone gawping at my arms like they’ve never seen a tensed bicep before.” He grinned.

“You’re awfully ballsy for someone who kissed me and keeps blowing me off like I’m a leaf and he’s a tornado.”

“I might well be a tornado for all you know.”

“If you’re a tornado, I’m Mother Nature, and I’m about to put your ass out.” I nodded toward the knives in the holder behind me. “Talk. Now.”

Dom held up both his hands. “All right, all right. Calm down, Chlo.”

I glared at him.

He pushed off the table, standing up straight, and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell you. I don’t know what you want me to tell you.”

I slid my hands around my body, hugging myself. “I want to know why you kissed me. That’s it. I don’t want a fucking fairytale, I just want to know why.”

“I wanted to.” He stopped, meeting my eyes. His gaze was raw and honest, and there was no way he was lying to me.

I knew him too well.

His left cheek didn’t twitch the way it had when he was sixteen and swore he hadn’t sneaked out for a field party. It didn’t twitch the way it had when his dad had found a condom wrapper in his pants pocket when he was seventeen, and he lied about losing his virginity.

It didn’t twitch.

Not for a second.

“You wanted to?” I asked quietly. “Why? How? That doesn’t make sense?”

“I know that. Shit, Chlo. You think I don’t know that? I do.” He scrubbed one hand through his dark hair. “I know it doesn’t make sense that I wanted to kiss you. Makes even less sense that I did. All I know is that I did it and I don’t regret it, so if you think I’m here to apologize, think again.”

I dropped my gaze to the floor for a second. “If you apologized, you’d have a knife through your thigh right now.”

“And I bet you know where that fucking artery is, don’t you?”

I nodded. Once.

God bless the Investigation Discovery channel.

“Look.” He took a step toward me, holding his hand out for a second before he put it back in his pocket, looking more like an awkward teen boy than a man who was thirty within a matter of months. “I get it, yeah? You and I, we fight like cat and dog. I can’t believe we haven’t killed each other, but you can’t tell me you didn’t feel something the other night. You can’t stand there and tell me you didn’t want me the way I wanted you.”