“I know.”
“So if you scream for help, no one is going to hear you. Not even your four older, fuckinguselessbrothers whose one job was to protect you but they can’t even do that right, can they?”
His rough tone makes my heart race faster. “I won’t scream.”
Another breath whooshes out of him. “You will. If I want you to.” His eyes grow all dark just like the sky around us. “If Imakeyou. And I can make you do a lot of things. In these woods, I’m the god, Fae, and my word is the only word. So if I tell you to get the fuck away from me and out of these woods, you need to do that.”
I don’t listen to him.
Of course I don’t.
He should know by now. Just because he tells me to do something, I’m not going to do it.
Not if I don’t want to.
I’m not the good girl Callie for him.
I’m his Fae and so I put my other hand on his chest too, as if to show how bad I can be, how eager.
“I’ll do it,” I whisper. “Whatever you want me to. I’ve been p-practicing.”
That throws him off, my excitement, eagerness. The little tidbit of information that I let slip. I can’t say that I did it accidentally. Or that I had no intention of doing it.
I had every intention.
I’ve had this intention for days now but I didn’t know how to bring it up.
I didn’t know if Ishouldbring it up or not.
Given the fact that I shouldn’t have been practicing at all what I’ve been practicing for days now.
“What?” he bites out.
If I tell him then there’s no going back. Then there’s no two ways about what I feel for him.
He’ll know.
Reed Roman Jackson, the Wild Mustang, the soccer god, the heartbreaker of Bardstown High will know that my good girl, not-so-freshman, just turned sixteen-year-old heart beats for him; my birthday was last week and he bought me cupcakes and new knitting needles and so much yarn.
Before I can make up my mind either way, my lips seal my fate as I blurt out, “You told me the other day, in the storage closet that… that you’re not so easy to take care of…”
Despite my determination in telling him, my courage falters when I actually say the words.
And I have to lower my eyes.
I have to fist his t-shirt and bite my lip as a flurry of butterflies swoops around in my stomach.
“What about it?”
His gravelly voice makes me clench my stomach. “You said that if I took care of you, I’d have bruised knees, so I…”
God, why can’t I just say it?
I should be able to say it.
I started this, didn’t I?
“You what?” he asks in a strangled whisper.
