Chapter Four
Amir
Pressingtheheelofmy hand into my eye, I willed the throbbing ache in my skull to disappear. I had too much shit to do to be dealing with one of my headaches.
Julien walked up the steps of the porch, throwing his backpack down on the ground, and flopped down in the chair beside mine. “S’up?”
I nodded to the computer in my lap. “Writing.”
He leaned over me, scanning the paper I’d been trying to write for the last two hours. “Oh shit. Is that for commerce? You have Krasinski, right?”
“Yeah. He’s as big of a hard-ass as you said.”
Julien and I were both juniors in the business school. He was majoring in marketing. I was in operations management. Savage U had one of the best business schools in the country, and the professors were at the top of their field. Dr. Krasinski had a reputation that went beyond the hallowed walls of Savage U. Internships and employers looked highly on applicants with recommendations from him. So I was busting more ass in his class than I ever had.
Julien gave my arm a slug. “See? The torture you’re going through right now is karma for making fun of my misery last semester. Krasinski is no joke. You’ll walk out of his class a hundred times smarter than you walked in—after he whips your brain around a blender all semester.”
I tried to laugh, but the sharp pain behind my right eye sobered me instantly. “Fuck.”
Julien cocked his head. “Did you take something?”
“No.”
“Jesus, don’t be a martyr. Go get a pill.”
“No.”
He turned toward the slightly cracked front door. “She’s in there, isn’t she?”
With a heavy exhale, I opened my eyes. “Yeah. She’s dusting.”
Julien sputtered a laugh. “Oh, shit. You’re taking this ownership thing so seriously, you have that girldusting?”
“I do. I could have her doing a lot worse. She made the choice to take on Schiffer’s punishment. I’m not letting that slide. He disrespected Reno, and by extension, me. In my eyes, she showed the same disrespect by being there with him.”
He sobered, studying me intently. “So, Schiffer gets off completely free while that girl has to dust our raggedy house?”
Setting my laptop on the small table beside my chair, I leaned back and clasped my hands on my stomach. “His punishment is losing the girl and having to wake up every day with the knowledge that she’s mine and will do whatever I want her to. He never gets to touch her, look at her, or even think about her.”
“You’re cool with being an asshole. Got it. That doesn’t explain why you won’t go inside to grab a Tylenol when you’re obviously in pain.”
Climbing to my feet, I grabbed my laptop. Julien knew exactly what he was doing, and I was rising to his bait, but fuck, my head was splitting in two. “Look at me going inside.”
With a snicker, the asshole followed me into the empty kitchen. The house was quiet except for the barely there squeak of the floorboards in the living room where Zadie must have been.
She’d shown up at four sharp, wearing another one of her ultra-feminine skirts. This one came down past her knees with a slit going up to midthigh. There’d been nothing inherently sexy about her skirt, plain white tee, Chucks, and jean jacket, but she filled out every spare inch of fabric with her tits, ass, hips, and cute little soft belly. I had to walk out the door when she started dusting or I would have made good on my threats and stuffed my cock between her pretty lips. I wouldn’t have felt bad about doing it either—she was mine and had agreed to all that entailed—but I preferred an enthusiastic partner. So my ass was outside whileherplump ass was inside. That was the only way it would work.
I swallowed a couple painkillers and chugged a large glass of water. Julien handed me a Coke from the fridge, and I first pressed it to my eyelid, then popped it open and took a long swig. He’d been around me while I had a headache enough times to know my routine.
Julien was making himself a sandwich, and I had a hip propped on the counter when Zadie came in, faltering at the sight of the two of us in the kitchen.
“Oh.” Her gaze swung to his loaded sandwich. “I was coming to start dinner.”
Grinning, he brought his sandwich to his mouth. “Have at it.”
The way she crinkled her nose at him made me want to bend her over my lap and spank the annoying habit out of her. It bothered me enough when she made that face at me. Seeing her do it toward Julien drove a railroad spike through my head.
“Are you even going to be hungry?” she asked.