Page 38 of Promise Kept

I step back and release my hold on her wrists.

I manage to somehow get my fingertips between the doors before they close.

The doors hurry to fully open.

“You hear me?” I ask. “You’re a fucking brat, Larissa. As far as I’m concerned you deserve a smack across your ass for the way you just acted.”

Her jaw drops.

I exit the elevator and stand just outside, refusing to blink as I stare her down.

The doors finally shut this next time.

I glance up and see the light change floors.

She’s below me, going toward the ground floor.

I’m angry. I’m turned on.

My hands curl up into fists.

I can’t stop thinking about giving Larissa’s bare ass a firm smack.

Not to hurt her. No. Never.

To have her. To teach her.

To stake my fucking claim on my dead best friend’s daughter.

LARISSA

Two thoughts attack me as I obsessively pace my apartment.

First? Ellis is fucking my mother. Probably fucking her right now. I mean, come on, everyone knows who Tamara Sydney is. How she made her living before she met my father. (And even how she made a living after…) If you don’t know about Tamara Sydney then you should look her up and read. There’s no way Ellis isn’t balls deep inside my mother.

If that thought isn’t insane enough…

Here’s the second thought I have.

Ellis not only called me a brat, but he threatened to slap my ass.

He threatened to spank me!

Ellis!

Ellis spanking me!

I can’t stop picturing it.

I can’t stop thinking if he did it right there in the elevator.

Like, imagine if the doors shut and he reached back and pressed the stop button…

Now the elevator is quiet.

Just us. Locked in the metal box dangling by thick, metal wires.

Then he grabs me and spins me around.

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