“RISE”—IPrevail
Not once since I’d discovered my gift had I not been able to influence someone’s emotions. Being one of a long line of psychic empaths was sometimes more of a curse than a gift. Not only did I have the uncanny ability to sense the emotions of others, I could manipulate their feelings.
It was part of the reason I’d never tried to have a relationship. Besides being emotionally bankrupt after the shit I’d done and been through in the army, I couldn’t handle the thought that someone was only happy with me because I inadvertently made them that way.
“Are you on crack?” the feisty little brunette barked at me, and I couldn’t help but laugh despite my confusion. She was hot as fuck when she was angry.
“Seriously? Jesus. Are you?” I tossed back at her.
Like a little kitten hissing and jumping around, she snarled and waved her hands in my face.
“Out of my way!” she spat childishly. I wanted to take her over my knee and redden her ass. Then I wanted to do things I shouldn’t. Except the temptation was worse than anything I’d ever experienced.
“No. I don’t think so,” I growled.
Knowing I was making a huge mistake, yet completely unable to stop myself, I pulled her closer and pressed my lips to hers. When she gasped in shock, I stole the advantage, and my tongue slipped in to duel with hers.
For a brief moment, she didn’t respond, but a second later, I was pretty sure she pushed herself up on her toes and brazenly reciprocated. My hands slid back to grip her hair in a tight fist.
She tasted like sin, cinnamon, and trouble. Trouble that was too fucking young for me. But goddamn, it was amazing.
The snow was letting up, but it was still cold. Reluctantly, I broke the kiss, took a deep breath. I’d intended to tow her car back tonight, but decided I’d call her a tow in the morning. I wanted her in the cab of my truck, not in her cold car as I pulled it down the road.
“I’m going to pull your car back from the pole.” Not that I figured any of the cops in this small town were going to go out of their way to check these back streets, but one never knew. I’d hate for her car to be impounded or for her to be accused of leaving the scene of an accident.
It took no time at all to hook my chains to her car and pull it off the pole and into the road. Once I had it parked on the side of the road, I got out of the truck, removed the chains, and tossed them in the bed of my truck.
“Come on, I’ll take you home.”
She slowly blinked twice before she swallowed hard. “I can’t leave my car here,” she said in a husky tone.
“It’ll be fine until morning. We’ll get it then.”
For a heartbeat, she looked like she was going to argue. Then her shoulders slumped slightly, and she locked the door before she closed it. I wanted to laugh and tell her no one was going to steal it, but the look of defeat on her face had me holding my tongue.
I guided her to the passenger side of my truck and literally bit my lip when her ass moved past my face as I helped her climb in. She was fucking tiny—barely taller than my grandmother.
Images of me picking her up and pushing her up against the wall as I drove deep inside her had me shaking my head to clear it.
“Grams said you live across the street from her?”
She nodded, and her messy dark hair half covered her face.
Too young, I reiterated to myself. Once she was safely inside, I closed the door and rounded the hood. After I was in the driver seat, I carefully pulled out and turned around in the cemetery driveway that she’d obviously hit in her slide.
She was silent on the way back and pointed to the appropriate house when we got there. Sure enough, it was straight across the road from the end of my grandmother’s little strip of apartments. They weren’t kidding.
I pulled into her driveway and put the truck in park.
Big blue eyes glanced in my direction. Her pink tongue skimmed her bottom lip as she appeared to ponder her words.
Don’t ask me in.
“Do you want to come in for some hot chocolate?”
Fuck. She had no idea what she was opening her door to by inviting me in. That kiss had only sparked the flickering flames I could sense between us, waiting to combust into a blazing inferno.
Darkly, I chuckled. “Do I look like a hot chocolate kind of guy?”