He released her, but his amusement had her pushing a strangled scream from between her teeth. She whirled away from him, stalked to her bedroom, and slammed the door with enough force to rattle the frame.
Shaking with rage she stomped to the side of the bed, jerked the phone off its cradle, and dialed her father’s cell phone number with jabbing stabs of her finger.
“Emily?” His voice came over the line, concerned, questioning.
“He’s fired!” Her voice was shaking. Her heart was racing hard enough to choke her. “Do you understand me? Right now. Get back here and get him, he’s gone.”
Silence filled the line for long moments.
“Did he hurt you, Emily?” he asked quietly.
She wanted to lie. For the first time in longer than she remembered she wanted to lie to her father.
“He’s crazy,” she bit out instead. “Certifiable. I will not stay here with him.”
“Has he hurt you, Emily?” The demand in her father’s voice became stronger, firmer.
“No, he hasn’t damned well hurt me,” she cried out. “But if you don’t come collect your bulldog I swear I’m going to hurt him.”
Silence again. She hated the silences.
“Daddy, I’ve never asked you to do this,” she suddenly whispered. “I’ve always let your boys stay. I’ve always let them follow me around like the guard dogs they were. I’m asking you this one time, please, get someone else.”
She hadn’t begged her father for anything in years. She had tried to be independent, tried to be self-sufficient and reasonably responsible.
She heard him sigh wearily. “I can’t do that, Em. Your life is more important to me than your wants right now. He stays.”
Shock raced through her, increasing the shaking in her body, the fear that began to cloud her mind.
“You can’t mean that,” she whispered.
“If he hasn’t hurt you, if you’re not scared of him personally, then yes, I do mean it. Now, I’ll ask you one more time, has he hurt you? Are you afraid he’s going to hurt you?”
He was going to break her heart. He was going to rip her soul from her body.
“I’m sorry I bothered you.” How she managed to control the shaking in her voice, she didn’t know. But she did. Pride firmed it, chilled it, and drew her upright as she stared at the wall across from her.
“Emily—”
“Goodbye, Daddy.” She hung the phone up softly as she blinked back her tears and realized that she never should have called him to begin with.
“Scared, Emily?”
She swung around and there he was. He had opened the door soundlessly and now leaned lazily against the frame, one ankle crossed over the other, one broad forearm leaning against the doorframe.
“Of you?” she asked with a sneer. “Not hardly, Kell. Not ever. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need a shower.” She began to move around the bed when she saw the panties, crumpled at the end of the bed rather than lying in the middle where she had tossed them.
She picked them up gingerly, stared at them then turned and tossed them to him coldly. And of course, he caught them, with one hand, with no effort.
“You can have them,” she stated harshly. “And enjoy them, because it’s the closest you’ll ever come to that particular part of my body again.”
Turning on her heel, she forced herself to move slowly to the bathroom, to enter it and close the door softly before locking it behind her and swallowing her scream of fury.
Kell Krieger wasn’t a man that a woman played with. A little light teasing, harmless kisses, or whispers in the dark. He was a male animal in the truest sense of the word and she suddenly felt helpless, like a prey.
What was it she had wished for earlier? A man she couldn’t control? A man who didn’t whine but took the reins?
She had to have been insane.