I want to laugh at the ridiculousness of his words. How cliched they sound. How useless they really are.
“Who hurt you?” he pushes.
Seriously? What is it with this man and rehashing the same conversations?
“I already told you. I fell,” I say.
Unamused, he finally looks me in the eye instead of examining my bruise. Standing to his full height, he pins me with his dark stare. “Who. Hurt. You?”
A noose squeezes around my ribcage, but I ignore it the best I can. “You know, considering how often we rehash the exact same conversations, you should really get your hearing checked.” I fold my arms and glare up at him because the last thing I’mgoing to do is give in and tell him the truth. Besides, what good will it do?
The same tic in his jaw greets me, and his upper lip flinches as if he’s holding back the snarl I thought I glimpsed earlier. I can’t decide if it’s because of my own stubbornness, or if he’s pulling up the image of my bruise in his mind. Or hell, maybe it’s for the man who put it there originally. Not that it matters. It’s none of his business and wouldn’t have happened in the first place if he’d given me my money back like I begged him to.
“Now, will this be all, or am I free to go?” I challenge. I wonder if he really believes I’m going to budge or give in to his every whim like every other person he’s used to dealing with. Jokes on you, buddy. I can do this all day long.
Finally, he growls, “Do you want to earn your money back, Little Thief?”
The one-eighty makes me dizzy, and I shake my head. “What?”
“I said, do you want to earn your money back?”
“Why?”
“Call it a change of heart,” he offers.
Spidey-senses tingling, I quip, “Do I earn it by kneeing you in the balls again? Because if so, where do I sign up?”
His mouth twitches, somehow managing to cut through the rage and indifference that’ve been fighting for the spotlight on his handsome face ever since he saw my back. “Not exactly what we have in mind,” he finally answers.
“We?” I scoff. “As in your brothers?”
“It’s a family business. We all have a say in how things are run.”
“Well, I’m not going to sleep with any of you, if that’s where you’re going with this.”
With a smirk, a real, genuine smirk this time, he scratches his jaw, looking sexier than any man has any right to be. “Never had to pay someone to sleep with me, Little Thief.”
“That’s surprising,” I lie.
His brows hitch. “Is it?”
Okay, it’s not surprising at all. Pretty sure most girls would pay a pretty penny just to be in this guy’s presence, let alone have his attention for free or be underneath him. Or on top. Or pressed against the nearest tree, or?—
Focus, Violet!
As if he knows he’s called my bluff, Jagger murmurs, “Don’t worry. You're not my type.”
“You like your girls curvy, too?”
“I like them honest and without a stick up their ass.”
My jaw drops at his candor, but I recover quickly, tossing back at him, “That’s rich, coming from a guy who was clearly born with a stick up his ass.”
His gaze darkens. “It’s for a game.”
“The stick up your ass? Gross.”
“I meant the way you could earn your money,” he clarifies.
