“Seriously. I was. I just had to get out of the house. Somehow. I don’t have a car ever since… Well… you know. All I have is my bike and walking wasn’t going to take me as far away as I needed to be.”
“And you just magically ended up here?”
The sarcastic tone of his words bites into my gut. His rejection last night didn’t feel final. It felt like a perfunctory warning, the beginning of a beautiful dance that I wasn’t going to give up on. This… the way he’s looking at me like I’m just a nuisance, something he needs to rid himself of for good… it cuts me.
My breathing changes again, coming out in little gasps.
“I-I thought I’d be safe here.” I bow my head when the truth comes tumbling out because I can’t bear to look at him.
“Safe? What do you need to be safe from, darlin’?” His voice is softer. “This is a good town. No violence. What could a rich little princess like you need protecting from?”
I will my lips not to move, but the words spill out. He knows, and still, he asks me. “Myself. Everything. Everyone.”
I look up in time to see Steel go tense. Watching a man like him tighten up, each muscle bunching under that leather jacket so that it creaks, his massive shoulders hunching forward, his thick legs spreading subtly as he changes his stance—it’s a thing to behold. There is no mistaking the deadly gleam in his eyes.
Or the way my entire body goes hot and reacts. A tremble starts in my stomach. It spreads heat to my thighs, my breasts, deep into my belly and even deeper into my core.
Steel smiles, a rare gift, and the shadows clear off his face almost instantly. That smile. It melts me, takes the rawness off all the edges.
“You can leave here, leave this all behind. Just go.” Rather than angry he sounds tired. World weary.
His words piss me off even though they’re spoken softly.
“Why do you think I want to leave? I left, but it didn’t solve anything.”
“Because that’s what you need to do. Leave all of this behind. All that this town represents.”
I hate that he’s right. I did enjoy the freedom of college. I want to leave and start fresh somewhere new with every fiber of my being, but he’s also wrong. I learned that my life always follows me. And I want to stay more than go. Because this is where he is. I want to know what’s possible with a man like him. I know my place is at his side and I’m not leaving. I’m not giving in or giving him up.
“It’s not what’s best for me.” My tongue darts out to wet my lips so I can say something else, but I notice the way Steel’s eyes track to my mouth, the way his jaw clenches and something in those gray depths stirs to life.
My eyes drop boldly to his jeans, and the noticeable bulge there makes my pulse pound, my belly tingle, and my thighs ache, but it also tells me that I am right.
He wants me.
At least, his body wants me.
I might be shy and inexperienced, but I know I’m pretty. I’ve seen the way men look at me, but I’ve never cared. It was all for him. All of me. Always. Seeing him react to me, no matter how he wants to keep himself immune, seeing the hunger in his eyes, strengthens my resolve. Something dark and primal inside of me answers that feral black sexuality he oozes.
We would fit together. I know it.
Steel’s whole body seems to go rigid again, and I can tell he is fighting it. Fighting me.
“You need to turn that bike around and go back home. What the hell are you doing out at this time of night? Don’t you have any sense? Don’t come here again. You’re playing with fucking fire, and I guarantee you won’t like getting burned.”
“I think I’d actually like being burned,” I retort. “Always did have a fascination with fire.”
“You weren’t built for this life, darlin’. I’ll keep telling you that until you see sense and believe me. Now, go home. Stop sneaking out in the night. My answer is no. It’s always gonna be no. Don’t keep coming around here, tempting me, or you won’t like what happens.”
His words send a delicious shiver clawing its way through me. I toss my hair, letting it fly around my shoulders like a gold curtain.
“Yeah?” I arch a brow. “I’m pretty sure I’d like it.”
Steel swallows and my eyes track the movement. His Adam’s apple bobs in his corded neck beneath the jet-black stubble. I want to press my hands to it, feel the outline of it as he swallows, feel him, alive under my fingertips. My stomach tightens, and I have to sink my teeth into my bottom lip to stifle a groan.
“You’re acting like a spoilt brat. You talk about being my queen, but you’re a girl. A little girl who has no idea about how the world works and a complete disregard for the consequences of her actions. Last night you acted like a whore, a woman who gives herself to other men. You wanted to use your body to get what you wanted. To manipulate me into it. Are you a child and a whore, Leah? Is that who you are?”
He is baiting me, but I can’t help sass him back because his words fester inside of me, turning the beautiful things I want to say to him, do with him, into something black and terrible and dirty, and I hate that he’s doing it to me.
