Page 55 of Love JD

His icy eyes flitted up to mine with a measure of amusement. “I’m your new bodyguard.”

“Like hell you are.”

He shrugged, clearly unperturbed by my rejection, and his gaze focused back on the screen with sudden intensity. I blinked a slow glare back to Zev, who still hadn’t moved from his chair. “Take this off.”

“Apologize for running away,” he volleyed.

I stood, moving slowly so I didn’t pass out and ruin the effect. “I didn’t run away. I went out for drinks.”

Zev did the same, rising from his chair and folding his arms. He had on a denim-style button down, but he wore it open over a heather gray T-shirt that complimented the faded gray jeans hugging his muscular thighs in a way that made me think of peeling them off.

I pulled my eyebrows together to hide the sudden wave of desire that had nearly taken me off my feet. “Tell me you’ve never gone out and had drinks at a bar, Zev. This is an overreaction.”

“That was not a bar,” he chided mildly. “And I definitely wouldn’t have gotten in a stranger’s car, gone with them blindly, and accepted drinks from them like you did.”

When you say it that way…

Kael suddenly sat up, lightly handling his laptop as he stood from his chair. “Isla. This is the woman you were with?”

He turned the screen to me, which showed a shockingly clear picture of Mattie leading me to a table at the club. Security cameras were something else these days. “Yeah,” I answered reluctantly. Whatever else, I didn’t want to get Mattie in trouble. She’d kept me safe even when I maybe… shouldn’t have been. Zev wasn’t entirely wrong.

“What was her name?” Kael pressed.

“I’m not telling you.” I turned and swept out of the room, ignoring the way my vision tilted. Unfortunately, my body didn’t get the memo, and I careened into the doorway. “Don’t,” I warned, holding a finger behind me as I stumbled into the hallway.

Zev followed close behind but didn’t touch me. “I’m not catching you if you fall.”

“Where’s my phone?”

“In my pocket,” Zev replied smoothly.

I stopped, spun on my bare heel, and faced him. I held out a hand. “I’m calling Tristan.”

Zev puckered his lips in thought, rocking back on his heels. “Mm… no.”

My chin jutted out as I chewed on the blinding rage that followed that refusal. “Are you fucking with me right now?”

“Oof, language,” he fake winced. He had his hands in the pockets of his jeans and changed the tilt of his head to regard me. “Apologize.”

“Fine, I’m sorry I had fun.”

“Ah, Isla,” he stepped close, crowding me with the smell of pine and maddening warmth. “I feel like you don’t mean it, though.”

I caught his bright gaze, holding it with a steel rope of fury. Suddenly, Kael interrupted us and shoved the monitor in my face again. “Isla, this isn’t a joke. Please tell me her name wasn’t Mattie.” My traitorous eyes bounced to the side uncertainly. Kael snapped the laptop shut. “I have to go.”

“Where?” Zev demanded.

“Hopefully?” Kael asked, backing away and tucking the laptop under his arm. “To throw that little brat over my shoulder and give her a dose of her own medicine.”

Zev and I both gaped at him. I threw a hand out to his retreating form. “That’s who Tristan sent to solve the problem? He was here for point two seconds.”

Zev rotated a half-lidded look my way. “The way you just casually called yourself a problem.”

“Not me,” I growled. “The paparazzi. They’re the ones climbing your walls.”

“I can handle paparazzi,” Zev argued, his voice dropping down lethally. He leaned forward to level our gazes. “It’s you that has me breaking shit.”

I looked around the brightly lit, quaint hallway. “What shit?”

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