That hot blue gaze was direct and fixed on me. As always. I hadn't seen him in work clothes before. I hadn't seen him work at all and seeing him now showed me a different side of him that I didn't want to see. I didn't want to see any more sides—especially the good sides to him. I knew that no matter how many times I told myself I was over him, how easy it would be to fall back again. "Kara," he said my name in that way of his. Softly, gently. It rolled off his tongue like rich, dark liquid chocolate. I fought the delicious shiver that slithered down my spine. No. Not again. Not fucking ever. Easy to fall back again, yes, but not impossible to stop it. He moved his arm and tried to place the hard hat over my head. I stepped away and glared at him. "You're not touching me. In fact, stay away from me. Two feet," I said, gesturing the space between us. "Two. Feet. You got that?" The amused look in his blue gaze infuriated me. As if nothing had happened between us. As if he wasn't gone for more than two weeks without even saying goodbye. Why did that hurt? If I expected an explanation or an apology from him, I knew it wasn't going to come. He crossed his arms across his chest, bracing his feet apart. "That's going to be impossible." "No, it's not. Just keep repeating it to yourself every few seconds. Like a chant. It should help your brain to remember it." A crooked smile appeared on his mouth. I looked away. "Here," he said, handing me his hard hat. "I want a new one. Something you haven't infected." I was being childish. The way I was reacting to him, the way I was so defensive. I didn't like it. If I was really over him, I had to show him he didn't affect me. Not a bit. But it hurt. I heard him sigh. "Follow me." I scowled at his sexy back muscles doing their double sexy thing as I followed him down the stairs. I nearly tripped when I noticed what was holding his hair. It was my blue hair tie. The one that reminded me of his eyes. The one that I was wearing almost a month ago when he pulled it from my hair. Confusion swirled inside me. Don't put any meaning to it. He probably reached for it out of convenience. He probably didn't even know it was yours. For all you know he's a hair tie thief. One for every girl he'd boned. Like Dexter's blood samples. Get it? Well, he hadn't boned me, and I would never let him so that would be a big fat stinking no. I followed him as he opened one of the rooms below the loft, let me in first. It was a windowless storage room. Gray walls, hard hats, jackets, dirty boots, metal lockers, shelves with file folders, and a shower at the back end of the room. He didn't seem to hear the threatening click of the door as it closed on us. But my body did. I stopped at the door, feeling a sensual animalistic danger around him. I watched as he stopped in front of a locker. I had forgotten how tall he was, how he took too much space and air in the room. His torso was long and svelte, his forearm muscles rippled and hardened as he pulled the locker doors open. Then he faced me, gesturing his arm in front of him. "Go and get one if you like," he said. When I didn't move, he raised a brow. Can you handle me? it seemed to say. A challenge. I narrowed my eyes at him. To prove him wrong, I marched in front of him and regretted it instantly. In this room where I was alone with him, his scent was stronger. It wrapped around me, a seductive cool blue smell. You have to fight it! Can't give in, girl. Don't give in. It was quiet in the room, a little cold. That was why I shivered. Because it was cold. It had nothing to do with him standing behind me. I shook my head, clearing my thoughts, and searched the shelves inside the locker. The hard hats were located on the top part of the shelf which was very nearly to the ceiling. I was tall, but not inhumanly tall like he was. "Want help?" he whispered. I felt dizzy. And it was because I hadn't eaten dinner yet. It was absolutely not because of his proximity. Absolutely not the heat emanating from his big body. Absolutely not the delicious timbre of his dark voice. "I don't need your help." I raised on my tiptoes and felt for the highest shelf without looking. When I felt one come free, I looked up and screamed when it fell on my face. He was there right away, quick to catch the hard hat in his hand before it could do damage. I jumped back and sucked in a breath as our bodies made contact. I was trapped. The locker doors blocked both my sides. And behind me was an immovable hard wall of male muscle. I could smell him so strongly— that very appealing smell that always reminded me of raw masculinity. I could feel the warmth of his body and the strength in it he controlled so meticulously. We didn't move. One, two, three damned seconds of weakness. I allowed myself this and only this. "Get off me," I said after a moment. My voice sounded thick. He didn't budge at first. One, two, three, four seconds. Then he did. I jerked away, far, far away from him. "I told you not to touch me," I said. He clenched his jaw, then looked down. There was a smirk on his mouth, but when he looked up, his eyes looked hard. "You were the one who touched me first." I glowered at him. Fine. That was true. My brain needed oxygen to function and he was sucking it all out of the room. "Here." He offered the hard hat to me. "I touched this one though. Now it's infected. Want to get another one?" I grabbed the hard hat from his big, idiot hands and left that damned room. Now I felt hot. And angry at myself for letting him affect me so strongly, so powerfully that I had let myself wallow in his touch for those significant seconds. It didn't matter how fast or slow that moment was. It happened. I let it happen, and that was what ate at me. Because giving in even for a tiny moment could be my downfall. One blow to an already cracked surface—no matter how thick or strong that wall looked, one blow was all it needed to topple it all down. "Wear this." He handed me a white mask with a yellow, thin garter. "We're going to drive around the lot and it's dusty out there. This should help." "I don't need it."