She was floundering, or so he sensed, throwing those words back so casually and seeking to turn those tables on him even as she sought to retreat. She may have apologized, but her words here told him she hadn’t learned a lesson. She was still saying things like “just a dress”, after all, when she knew very well it wasn’t so simple as that. This little game of hers needed to backfire if he wanted her to quit playing it. So he stepped smoothly in her path, to catch her exactly where she didn’t want to be, pressing the advantage to the point of moving forward, so she was forced to either step back or find herself pressed to him.
“I don’t think you quite know yourself, do you?” The question was rhetorical, and he didn’t wait for an answer, gaze raking over her in a way it had no right to, lingering in all the wrong places, imbuing the words with darker thoughts. It wasn’t so hard as he would have guessed, playing this part. He had said it himself; she had always been lovely. “We could find out though. This time around, you can tell me what you want. It might be our last chance, you know.”
A presumptuous touch sough her out, to cup her chin against curled fingers, gentle despite the harshness of the words. He wouldn’t leave a mark on that pretty face, not for anything, though by now she may have her doubts.