𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡 | 𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐧

０１４．

Rafe couldn't stand the way she looked at him.

Though her words were harsh enough, hissed orders to stay still and to stop being a bitch because it couldn't hurt that bad, she looked at him like he was fragile. Like she needed to be gentle with him.

And what he hated more was why she looked at him like that. She'd seen right through the facade, through the stupid fight he'd gotten himself into and the terse words he'd thrown at her. Somehow, she knew that all of this was more than just his just being angry and arrogant.

He just wanted her to stop looking at him that way. To stop touching him so gently and being so kind when he'd seen that temper of hers and he knew full well that she wasn't just kind like that.

It made him want to be cruel.

And it was stupid and reckless and he did it anyways.

"So, uh, how's the plan going?" He said, intentionally vague as he watched her expression closely while she saturated the cloth in her hand with rubbing alcohol.

"What plan?" Ren replied evenly, glancing up at him just briefly before returning to her work.

There it was. That look again. He'd never seen her not look cool and unbothered before. But now, she stared up at him with soft, searching, all-fucking-knowing doe eyes that drove him absolutely insane. In a lot of different ways, but right now, mostly just the bad ways.

He shrugged, fighting the urge to flinch as she touched the alcohol-soaked towel to his busted lip. "You know, to get Cain to make things official. Or did I misinterpret that?"

She froze, all semblance of warmth draining from her gaze in a half-second as she set her jaw and looked him in the eye. "What's your fucking problem?"

That... was an unexpected question.

Rafe played it off as best he could, shrugging. "I'm happy to help, you know. Trust me, I'm getting plenty out of this deal."

The look Ren gave him was heated enough that if he weren't feeling so bold, Rafe might have shied away from it. She ran the cloth over the cut beneath his eye a little harder than she had been, enough that the pressure of it and the sting of the alcohol made him recoil. "Ow, fuck," he muttered.

"Did that hurt?" She asked, her voice razor-edged. "My bad."

Rafe rolled his eyes as he shoved her hand away. "Yeah, that's enough of that."

"Oh, that's when it's enough," Ren muttered under her breath as she pushed herself to her feet. "Not when you're fucking terrorizing everybody because your daddy hurt your feelings."

He'd heard her. Loud and clear, every word of what she'd said. And he knew that she'd had every intention of him hearing her, especially as she fixed him with a gaze that was all challenge when he cocked his head, his tone sharp as he said, "What was that?"

She gave him that pretty, sticky-sweet smile she'd given Cain the night before, the one that promised words dripping with venom. "Whoops. Let me repeat myself. You are terrorizing everyone around you because your daddy hurt your feelings. Or did I misinterpret that?"

The silence between them grew frigid as they stared at one another, each waiting for the other to break first. Rafe sure as shit didn't plan on caving anytime soon.

But then Ren was smirking to herself, grabbing a towel and heading toward the bathroom as she shook her head. She had that look on her face, the look you get when you know you've won an argument fair ad fucking square, and it was the only push Rafe needed before he was standing.