All this unwanted attention and guys staring at my butt so openly.
I tell Tempest that I want to go home and relax and so she calls for her driver to come pick us up.
It’s a good thing because I don’t think I can walk in these shoes anymore.
Only my happiness is short-lived because instead of a driver, her brother shows up in a white flash, his Mustang.
He takes one look at the both of us and his wolf eyes grow furious as he growls, “Get in.”
Which we do.
Tempest and I are in the back seat while Reed drives in a seething silence. When I catch Tempest’s eye in the darkened interior of the car, she winks at me happily and that’s how I know.
That’s how I know that she never called the driver. She called him.
That scheming… non-friend.
Because we’re not friends anymore. She lied to me.
Not only that, as soon as we reach their big, sprawling house, she jumps out of the car with a happy goodbye thrown at me.
Although her brother doesn’t let her go so easily.
“Straight to your room,” he growls again, the only words he’s spoken after his commanding get in. “Now. And put some fucking clothes on, we’re going to have a talk.”
Her shoulders droop and she mumbles something before turning to me, winking and running away, leaving me alone with him.
Oh my God.
Oh my God, I’m gonna kill her. I’m so gonna kill her right now.
Actually, I’m so gonna kill him.
For being so… authoritative and angry.
Only he also makes me want to rub my legs together in restlessness when he talks like that, in his deep commanding voice.
But whatever.
I throw open the door and jump out, totally charged up to go after Tempest and make her pay for this. But I don’t get too far. In fact, I don’t even get to take more than a few steps away from his Mustang because there’s something stopping me.
Or someone.
How he made it out of the car and over to my side so fast, I don’t know. All I know is that I can’t go anywhere as long as he stands before me.
Or rather, as long as he’s backing me up into his car.
As soon as my spine hits the cold metal, I shiver and words jar out of me. “Let me go.”
He doesn’t.
Frankly, I didn’t expect him to.
But then I also didn’t expect him to lean forward. I didn’t expect him to put his arm on the roof of his car, just by my side, effectively stopping me from leaving.
Although I should have. Expected it, I mean.
If he can lock me up in a closet so I don’t get to run from him, he can do anything.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
In response, he runs his eyes all over my body, slowly, methodically, as if making a point before raising them back to my face. “Looking at you.”
Again, I get the urge to rub my thighs together at his low, heated tone. “Why?”
“Because that’s what you want, don’t you? You want me to look at you.”
“I do not,” I lie.
When did I become such a liar?
I thought I was the good girl.
He knows I’m lying too because a smirk breaks out on his ruby-red, crescent-shaped mouth. Only it has a dangerous edge, a humorless quality. “Yeah, you do. Why else would you be wearing something like that? Something that…” He looks me up and down again, a cursory and yet lingering glance. “Leaves very little to my imagination.”
My imagination.
As if.
I put my sweaty palms on his Mustang so my balance doesn’t falter. “That’s extremely arrogant of you, don’t you think? To assume that. That I’d wear something just to get your attention.”
Never mind that I did. I mean, subconsciously.
Okay maybe a little consciously but whatever.
He dips his chin in a condescending manner. “It’s the truth though, isn’t it?”
In response, I raise mine, just to look defiant. “No, it’s not. And this is a perfectly normal dress.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
I’m not sure what’s happening tonight but everything that I’m saying is making him angrier and angrier.
And none of that is even remotely bothersome to me.
Not even when he leans further down, shaking the car at my back and bringing his wolf eyes, which I cannot look away from, even closer.
“Because I don’t think that a perfectly normal dress would highlight every fucking curve of your tight ballerina body,” he says with clenched teeth. “Would it? Or that when you walk in it, your perky tits would be dangerously close to jiggling out. And the whole world could see the cheeks of your juicy, tight ass.”
For a number of seconds after he’s finished talking, I’m unable to believe the things he’s said.
For a number of seconds, I simply blink up at him.
I’ve never ever heard anyone talk about my body in such graphic, derogatory terms. Because it is all derogatory, isn’t it?