“Nope.” Scarlett slapped both hands on her bed, fighting energy pushing out of her naked skin. Her gaze had Derek trapped. “Why can men walk around without a shirt but I can’t?”
“Because it’s different.”
“Why?” she pressed.
“It just is! Damn, ease up, missy.”
I watched as the demeaning pet name slapped Scarlett’s eyebrows up, challenge coming in from all angles. The look about her set my gut on edge, knowing her well enough by now to know something was up but not well enough to know what exactly it was.
She was as unpredictable as the weather, sunny and bright one moment, brewing storm warnings the next. Right now, as Scarlett walked in slow steps over to Derek, every alarm in my head was screaming to take cover and bring the raging storm with me.
I could smother her hellfire and rain before it started, but after she’d begun, there’d be no stopping whatever damage she intended on leaving.
“So you can show your nipples out in public, but I can’t show mine? Is that what you’re saying?” She made her way right in front of Derek, head tilted up and back to hold his beady little eyes.
As if he thought he was winning, he nodded. “Uh, yeah.”
She cocked her head just so.
And then swung her arms behind her back, fingers finding the clasp of her bra.
The sight brought the alarms in my head to a deafening blare, and my heart jumped.
“Scarlett—”
“Hold this for me, will ya?” Before I could reach her, she slid the cover of her bra from her chest, perfect bare tits spilling out.
Aw fuck, come on!
Derek’s face beamed like a fucking Christmas tree as he devoured the sight of Scarlett’s naked chest below him, the lights in his eyes about bursting when she shoved her black bra against his chest.
Searing flames licked all over my body, boiling my temperature to something combustible and heating my vision red-hot. All I saw was blood red, and at the center of the massacre was Derek’s fucking greedy eyes.
I was moving before I’d registered it even happening.
“Woah! Reyes—” Derek shut the fuck up as I shoved him up against the wall, my forearm sitting tight underneath his chin and pinching his neck between the two.
“Keep your fucking eyes in your head or I rip them out, yes?” Derek opened his mouth to spew more bullshit, and I pressed my arm harder against his tiny neck until his eyes bulged. “Say yes,” I snarled.
“Yes! Okay, fine! Now get off, man.”
I let him drop to the floor, backing away just in time to see the motel door rip open and a flash of red dip out.
“Motherfucker.”
I blew through my curse as I raced after her, shielding my arm over my eyes as sunlight blasted my vision. Squinting, I found my mark of red strolling through the motel parking lot like she was on a walk through a goddamn rose garden rather than a rundown part of town.
She wasn’t running. She wasn’t trying to escape. She was just making a fucking show out of her point.
Her bare back shined against the sun, glimpses of pink, puckered nipples swaying as she waved at passing cars. She was going to cause a goddamn pile up.
Behind me, Derek fell through the door, hands rubbing where I’d held his neck as he watched Scarlett with the same curious look in his eyes as I once had as I tried to figure her out. Little did he know, there was no figuring Scarlett Avery out.
There was just swimming through her waves and trying to stay afloat.
“Stay,” I threw behind me at Derek.
My blood was hotter than the beating sun as I made my way across the black asphalt to where Scarlett was currently waving at oncoming traffic. A growl building in my throat, I yanked off my shirt so I was only in jeans and a black undershirt.