His stare hardens and I spin around to face the other three. “What’s your big plan here?” I ask before King gets a chance to throw some more of his douchey bullshit at me. I light my cigarette and take a quick drag before blowing the smoke out around us. “Corner the new chick, try to intimidate her before she finds the nerve to fuck up the hierarchy that you’ve somehow managed to put in place around here?” I look at each of them, studying their blank expressions, not one of them giving away a single thought. “I’ve got news for you, boys, I’m not interested. Your intimidation tactics won’t work. I’ve dealt with far worse than a bunch of over-privileged high-school douchebags. You can’t touch me, but from the way you’re all crowding around my bike and showing your hand, you’re making it more than obvious that I can touch you, and you know what? Maybe that’s exactly what I’ll do.”
I take another drag as all eyes seem to focus on Carver, looking at him to deliver some kind of alpha fuckery to mess me up. He takes a step forward, towering over me, his large frame nearly twice the size of mine.
The smoke blows out of my mouth just as he grips my chin and forces my gaze up to his. Carver pinches the cigarette out of my mouth and drops it between us. “Make no mistake, Winter,” he says, his voice wrapping right around me and forcing me to focus every ounce of my attention on him, making it impossible to pull away. “You have no idea who you’re fucking with.”
“Then enlighten me, Carver,” I murmur, purring his name and refusing to give in. “What could you possibly do to me that hasn’t already been done? You can’t fuck with someone who has nothing to lose, but a guy like you who holds the whole world in the palm of his hands, yeah, a guy like that might just crumble.”
His eyes narrow on mine. “You couldn’t touch us even if you tried,” he tells me, his eyes dropping down my body, slowly taking it in with a disinterested leer. “You look like a smart girl, and I’m sure that wherever the fuck you came from, you were the baddest bitch around, but here, you’re nothing. So, believe me when I say that this warning is for your own good; stay out of our fucking way. Don’t go around trying to cause shit, and don’t even think about trying to make a stand.” Carver leans in, his face impossibly close to mine so that I feel his breath brushing across my lips. “You will lose every fucking time.”
I pull my chin free of his tight grip and push my knee between his legs, moving my foot forward until my boot is pressing down over the lit cigarette and the top of my thigh is rubbing against his junk. My toes squish the cigarette as my eyes meet Carver’s fiery ones, my hand sliding up his strong chest and feeling the sharp thumping of his heart beating beneath. “Like I said,” I whisper, raising my chin just an inch to feel my lips gliding over his. “Your bullshit isn’t going to work on me because I’m not scared of you, Dante Carver. In fact, quite the opposite. I don’t know you, and I don't want to know you, but your little game looks like fun. Just a warning, though, you’re wrong about me. I never lose.”
Carver’s jaw clenches as I feel his friends’ eyes darting between us. “Don’t be stupid,” he says, almost with a growl. “You’re punching way above your weight class in a game that you couldn’t even begin to understand. Back off before you get yourself in the kind of trouble you won’t be able to fight your way out of.”
I bite down on my lip and pull away from him, my eyes narrowing as I feel my fingertips roaming over my brass knuckles. How does he know that I fight? Despite the brave words that spill from my lips, I’ve never met such intimidating guys. They ooze power and it has me desperate to shrink under the weight of their stares, but I won’t dare. I’ll die before ever caving like that. Sometimes girls like me, all we have is our pride.
Trying to keep my cool, I walk back over to my bike and pull my backpack on before throwing my leg over my only form of freedom and straddling it. All four guys continue staring, and I do my best not to break under the pressure. I nod my chin toward the Escalade. “I’m sure assholes like you have somewhere better to be than hanging around school and measuring the size of your dicks, so why don’t you go ahead and do it?” I turn to Cruz. “For the record,” I say with a seductive wink. “In case your small brains can’t work it out, now I’m telling you to fuck off.”