He realized he was staring. “Yeah. Of course.” He stepped back so she could walk down the hallway unimpeded and told himself it was for the best. As soon as the door closed behind her, he hopped in the shower and endured a five-minute freezing scrub-down. He made it out in time to hear Bri muttering up a storm. Ryan rounded the corner and froze at the sight of her scrambling to clean up the remains of three broken eggs on the floor. How the hell had she dropped so many? She glanced up, caught him standing there, and shot to her feet, her elbow smacking the spatula and sending it spinning across the counter to join the eggs on the floor.

“Would you like some help?”

“I’ve got it, thanks.” She turned around and went back to wiping the egg mess up. She should have looked sloppy in her oversize sweats and T-shirt but, fresh-faced and with her hair pulled back, it was everything he could do not to come around the island and strip her naked.

Good to know his resolve not to touch her was holding on.

“I’m not exactly a great cook, but I figured I could get breakfast started without too much trouble.” She motioned to a carton of eggs and a pan she was in the process of breaking them into.

Ryan choked as she dumped what must have been half the saltshaker into the eggs. “That’s great. I can take over if you want to use the bathroom to finish getting ready.”

She frowned. “Why would I need to ‘finish getting ready’?”

Well, shit. He glanced at the fridge, the stove, and the kitchen island, but none of them gave him a way out of the hole he’d just dug himself into. There was no safe answer to that question, but the line between her eyebrows was getting deeper by the second, so staying silent wasn’t an option either. Since he didn’t particularly want to fight, he tried to change the subject. “I make a mean breakfast scramble. I think I saw hash browns in the freezer.”

Bri moved forward, blocking his way. “You think I should go put makeup on or pretty myself up, don’t you?”

This was exactly the conclusion he hadn’t wanted her to jump to. Truth be told, she looked more edible than the eggs burning in the pan behind her. “You look fine without makeup.”

Instead of calming down, her eyes flashed. “Fine. You mean fine for a mousy librarian surrounded by books, right? Why would I bother with makeup since no one expects me to be pretty?”

Christ. He took her shoulders and gave her a little shake. “That’s not what I’m saying and you goddamn well know it. If you weren’t determined to be so fucking difficult, I’d have no problem dragging you to the bedroom right here and now.” But he wasn’t some sex toy, here for her enjoyment. Ryan let her go and stepped back. “Since that’s not going to happen, why don’t you sit back with your book or something while I toss those eggs and make a scramble?”

She backed toward the stove, like she thought he was going to jump around her and grab the pan. “What’s wrong with my eggs?”

“For one, they’re burning. For two, I just watched you dump a day’s sodium intake onto them.”

“They’re fine.” She wielded the spatula, her chin up as if daring him to contradict her.

She wanted to play queen of the castle? Fine. She could choke on the damn eggs. “Knock yourself out, then.”

Bri grabbed two plates and shoveled a pair of messed up–looking eggs onto each. She shoved one across the island to him. “Enjoy.”

So she expected him to suffer, too? Fine. He’d survived Hell Night during indoctrination. Nineteen hours of the worst torture training could serve up, and he hadn’t washed out. Eating two eggs should be nothing compared to that.

He was proven horrifically wrong when he took his first bite and was pretty sure his tongue would never be the same. Or maybe it was all part of her plan to make sure his mouth was too dried up to talk for the rest of the weekend. As plans went, it was brilliant. He got up, doing his damnedest to keep any expression off his face, and went to the fridge in search of some kind of juice to combat the horrible taste. Water wasn’t going to cut it today.

Behind him, Bri made a choked noise. He glanced over as he grabbed the orange juice, schooling his face to show nothing. “Problem?” How’s that pride tasting now?

She coughed, a pained expression on her face. “Not in the least. How’re the eggs?”

How far was she willing to take this? Because if she thought she could outlast him, she was crazy. He’d eaten worse things than this—not many, but still. Ryan poured himself a giant glass of juice and smiled, though it felt more like a baring of teeth. “They’re great.”

She flinched, then seemed to gather her resolve. “If you’re enjoying them so much, I should make you seconds.”

The little brat. She would in a heartbeat, too, and smile sweetly while she double-dosed the salt. He took a long drink and nearly groaned with relief when it hit his parched tongue. “I’d never be so selfish. You must be starving, though. I don’t see how two eggs would be enough after the workout I gave you last night.”

Her mouth thinned, blue eyes sparking behind those glasses he still wanted to take off even though he kind of wanted to throttle her right now, too. “You know, that’s a fantastic idea. And since I’ll be cooking anyway, it’ll be no trouble for me to make us both more.”

“Awesome.” If he died from high salt toxicity, it was just one more thing to lay at the feet of Drew and Avery. It would serve them right to show up here and find him and Bri mummified, all moisture pulled from their bodies.

They ate with jerky movements, staring each other down. He kept waiting for her to flinch and back off, but she wasn’t showing a bit of weakness. And because of how things had played out between them up to this point, he couldn’t. So he forced down bite after bite of egg while he fantasized about bending her over this counter and fucking some sense into them both.

She finished her last egg and set down her fork, looking a little green around the edges. “You know—” Her hand flew to her mouth, eyes going wide.

Though part of him wanted to leave her to her much-deserved suffering, Ryan couldn’t do it. He slid his half-filled glass over. “Drink.”

“Thanks,” she whispered. Then she drained the entire thing.

He couldn’t let this go on. He wasn’t sure they’d survive a second helping. Even now, his stomach was making its unhappiness known��which was saying something since he’d eaten some questionable things over the years. He took a deep breath. “If you’re still hungry, how about oatmeal instead?” Hopefully it would soak up some of the salt.

For a second, he thought she’d argue or insist on the goddamn eggs, but then Bri offered up a sheepish smile. “That sounds a lot better than my idea.”

He hopped out of his chair and got to work. If he gave her too long to think about it, it was entirely possible she’d change her mind.

Once he disposed of the eggs and got a pot of water situated on the stove—and was facing away from her—he rubbed his stomach and grimaced. Pride might have been the name of the game, but it was pretty damn stupid to muscle down terrible food just to prove a point. Still, he couldn’t help feeling a thread of satisfaction that he wasn’t the first one to blink.

It was high time he got the ball back in his court.

…

Bri sat perfectly still, trying to convince herself she wasn’t going to throw up. There was a reason her oven sat mostly unused at home. She didn’t bake or roast or cook as a general rule. The only reason she’d tried this morning was because she needed something to do while Ryan showered, to distract herself from thoughts of water running over his naked body. She’d reasoned that he made dinner last night, so she might as well pull her own weight this morning.

She should have stuck with cold cereal.

But then he’d come in with his comments about her going to the bathroom to finish getting ready, and she’d forgotten all about trying not to fight. How was she supposed to keep her temper when his words felt tattooed on her brain? Mousy librarian. No matter what had happened since they met, he still thought of her like that.

Would he like her better if she wore makeup?

She gave herself a mental kick. It didn’t matter. She didn’t want to be with someone who thought she needed to wear makeup every second of every day in order to be beautiful. Not that he’d ever called her beautiful. God, she was giving herself a headache with all this mental circling.

Or maybe that was the sodium overload.

If she hadn’t been so angry, she would have taken him up on his offer to make a scramble and just tossed the eggs, but she’d wanted to prove to him that there was something she could do right, even if it was something so small as fried eggs. She was horribly wrong on that count. From the moment she’d started cooking, things had gone sideways. And he hadn’t reacted at that first bite, or the second, or any of them. She already felt so out-of-control around him, admitting she couldn’t eat something that had been her idea in the first place was harder to swallow than the eggs. So she’d forced down the entire thing.

Looking back, it was the highest degree of stupidity, but he seemed to bring out that side of her like no one else she’d met. She’d never had a problem with controlling herself before, let alone to the point where she was having sex on her porch swing—or getting into car accidents. But with Ryan, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to climb into his lap and let him do wicked things to her. At least it did when they weren’t at each other’s throats.