Page 11 of Disguised as Love

The irony wasn’t lost on either of us that we were, in fact, in my bathroom.

“We’ll say I’m your boyfriend,” he tossed out.

I laughed. “It would be a cold day in hell before I’d ever let you be my boyfriend, pretend or otherwise.”

As I brushed past him to put the case in my luggage on the bed, my entire body reacted to the small touch, just like it had in the car when I’d woken from my faint to find him latching my seat belt. His gaze had felt like a brand, trying to scour me, and I refused to be marked, even if I’d never felt such a sizzling reaction to another human being in my life. I’d had sex. Plenty of damn good sex. But this man…he tugged something from the inner recesses of me. It was a desire to submit. To just give in to whatever he wanted…commanded. My jaw clenched. I refused to give that much control to anyone, especially not an agent of the U.S. government.

“You know it’s the best solution,” he pushed when I didn’t respond.

“No.”

He closed the distance until he was standing right behind me as I packed. I could almost feel his breath stirring my hair.

“Are you afraid you’ll like it?” It was a taunt. A dare. I knew it, and yet I couldn’t help reacting to it. I whipped around to face him. My chin barely reached his chest. I looked up as my finger poked the brick that was his pectoral muscles.

“Back off, Antonne,” I said sarcastically. “Papa trained me himself in self-defense, and my stilettos can cost you a ball or two.”

If I hadn’t been standing practically in his embrace, I wouldn’t have seen the flare of heat that rushed through his gaze before he hid it. My body wouldn’t have had a chance to react to it. But it did. It betrayed me because it liked everything about this man who I was supposed to hate.

His lips curled up. “I’d like to see you try, little one. Might be fun.”

The unexpected tease had my mouth falling open.

“Don’t call me that,” I growled. “And we both know size doesn’t equal performance.”

He laughed.

A laugh that curled through my stomach, making me forget for all of two seconds the loss and heartache trying to crawl its way out of me. A laugh that made my heart flip, craving to hear it again.

I pushed him aside, and he went when we both knew I wouldn’t have been able to move the mountain that was Cruz Malone if he didn’t want me to. I grabbed some pajamas from my drawer and purposefully returned to the far side of the bed, as far away as I could get, while I added them to my suitcase.

I pulled out my phone again.

“I want a minute to myself to call Georgie.”

He didn’t ask who Georgie was. I was pretty sure the FBI file he had on me cataloged every detail of my life?how I spent my days and every person who strolled through them. He probably knew every man I’d ever been with better than me. None of them had ever become a boyfriend. I’d never allowed them to stay in my life because I would never know if they were there for me, my money, or my connections.

He walked to the door and looked back. “I know I don’t need to say it…that you live it…but none of your conversations are safe. And once we leave here, you’ll need to not jerk away when I’m standing next to you. No one will believe I’m your boyfriend if you run like that.”

“You’re not my boyfriend.”

The door shutting behind him was his only reply.

I growled, picked up a boot from the suitcase, and threw it at the door. But the truth was, the anger he caused to spike through me was a relief. It was much better than the sorrow and tears gathering just below the surface.

Cruz

GIRL ON FIRE

“Nobody knows that she’s a lonely girl,

And it’s a lonely world.

But she gon’ let it burn, baby, burn, baby.”

Performed by Alicia Keys

Written by Remi / Augello-Cook / Bhasker / Minaj / Squire

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