Page 3 of Resist

“So you have a private investigator, do you?” he asks, changing the subject and leaving me to unscramble where he’s going with this. “You think you’re the only one in this situation who has information to hold over the other one’s head?” He quirks an eyebrow, and a smarmy smirk fails at lighting up his features. “Number one rule and all that.”

My nerves rattle violently beneath the surface as our eyes hold and his threat takes hold.

He’s bluffing.

He has to be.

No one knows who I am. Where I’m from. What I have at stake here.

There’s no way he can know.

Panic like I’ve never felt before claws over my throat and threatens to siphon off its air. I tamp down the anxiety and know the only shot I have at putting him in his place—fearful of what I can do to him and his career—is to use my trump card. To play the unexpected information that was emailed anonymously to my PI days ago.

Here goes nothing.

“Bribery and swing votes seem to be all the rage this congressional session, now don’t they?” I lift a single brow and let him know I’m ready to play.

“And?” His voice may be unaffected, but the quick dart of his tongue to his bottom lip says plenty.

“It would be a shame if the documents I had in safekeeping somehow made their way into the hands of the right people.”

“You’re lying!” His voice thunders into the room, but the gray pallor of his skin tone tells me I’ve struck enough fear into him to gain a little more security.

“But am I?” I bat my lashes, the picture of innocence.

“You don’t want to fuck with me.” He seethes. The tendons in his neck strain, and the muscle in his clenched jaw tics. Even now, there’s a manicured attractiveness to him. Too pretty. Too polished. And with an underlying callousness to him.

“But it’s so tempting,” I say sarcastically. “Here’s how this is going to go—”

“This conversation is over.” He cuts me off and stuffs his wallet into the back of his slacks without looking at me.

“With so much at stake too . . .” My voice is singsongy as I play with fire.

“I’m not a man who’ll kowtow to bogus threats and be led around by the balls.”

“Seems to me I have both of your balls firmly in my grasp,” I say.

Without warning he strides across the room—shirt unbuttoned, muscle in his jaw pulsing—and steps into me. I retreat, my breath hitching ever so slightly when my back bumps up against the wall.

Don’t panic.

But I do.

My pulse thunders as the awareness seeps into every part of my being—that if he could leave those marks on Lola in the pursuit of sex, I can’t imagine what exactly he’d do to someone when his temper was sparked.

Carter stands close enough that our bodies brush against one another. I can smell the whiskey on his breath. The subtle mix of sweat and cologne. I can feel the heat of his body.

“Oh, this could be so much fun, Vee.”

A man who gets off on making a woman scared. The worst kind.

Beads of sweat appear on his temple. I meet him stare for stare as he squares his shoulders and stands to his full height, his physical presence more than dominating the space and dwarfing my five-foot-five frame.

Needing to de-escalate the situation—to get his focus off me—I draw in a measured breath. “You laid your hands on Lola.”

“She liked it.”

Asshole.