Page 87 of Underground Prince

“And what have I transformed into?” At his rumbling tone, I expected him to slam his palms onto the table, rattling our plates, sloshing our drinks. But I should’ve known better. This was Theo, and nothing he did was impulsive. He rose over me, stared me down, more effective than any fit of temper. “My father? Am I going be running his rings next? Smuggling illegal weapons, turning girls into tricks, funneling blood money though legitimate businesses? Is that what you’re asking?”

“Theo—”

Shoving a hand into his pocket, he threw a wad of bills on the table before slipping out of the booth and pushing through the restaurant, and I followed, knowing my mistake but refusing to believe it, and ran after him.

“Theo, wait. Wait!”

His broad back wove through a scrabble of pedestrians on the sidewalk, surrounding buildings and their rows of windows providing a sort of smoggy glow onto our fog-fueled argument.

“Theo!”

“You want me, do you?” he asked, rearing into my face, but I didn’t flinch. “You crave a quick fuck, then fine. I can do that for you. I’ll take you right now. Up against a wall, on the floor, on tables, we can do that and it would be terrific, wouldn’t it?”

I gulped his name. “Theo—”

“If that’s what you want, I’ll give it to you and then some. I’ll have you writhing underneath me, begging, screaming for me to fill you.”

I grabbed his chin, my fingers digging into his cheeks as I sunk to his level, our anger and tension and frustration cleaving into the cold, damp air surrounding us. “Keep going. Keep spitting out words and pretending.”

He barked with laughter, ripped out of my hold. “I’m not disguising anything. This is who I am.”

“Oh, yeah?” I moved into his line of vision. “Here’s the thing. I’d fuck you too, and I’d fuck you good.” He froze midstride, and I forged on. “But I won’t, because you’re petrified. You’re just a scared little boy in a big-man suit, because this whole time, since the day we met, you’ve been afraid to come one step closer to me because it could be you. You who’d be screaming my name. Who’d be begging for all of me.”

He bared his teeth, had me stumbling back. Theo raised his head to the sky and screamed out his guttural frustration, but he looked back, and in those few seconds I searched for a crack in his armor and I found it. Pain, fear, desperate hope. A flash of everything before he covered it with the brick of deadened resolve.

“You’re afraid of me, Theo Saxon!” I screamed after him.

He didn’t acknowledge me—

Or get into his car like I thought he would. He stepped out onto the street, and with the grace of someone who always gets what they want, a cab smoothed to a stop beside him. He wrenched the back door open, deigning to address me one last time by saying through his teeth, “Get. In.”

“No.”

“Get in, Scarlet, because I’m not leaving you here and I doubt you have the desire for me to drive you home.”

I opened my mouth to lash out a retort, but my mind caught up with my anger and registered the scene in front of me. Theo, a self-designated bad, despicable, deplorable man, one who was extremely pissed with me due to my much-deliberate riling, refused to leave until he knew I was safe.

Jaw as rigid as my joints, I headed over to the door he held open, primly sliding in and staring straight ahead. He slammed it shut behind me, so hard my teeth rattled, but I gave no outward sign that he shook me to the core. Not out of fear, but out of nowhere. Here I was, believing it was sex that drove me, a desire to have him naked and ready for all I wanted to do to that glorious body, when meanwhile my subconscious had been trundling away, collecting those moments, those tender screenshots of my time with him, in order to use them against me when I was least prepared for it.

I liked him. No, I cared for him, and not in ways I was comfortable with.

The cab lurched away from the sidewalk and drove me far from Theo, when all I wanted to do was run back and tell him that I was still here. I still lived.

Blood pulsed underneath my skin, cells colliding and bursting as they rushed through the river of red, all of it combining so I could feel the resounding beats of those efforts through my flesh, surrounding my bones.

Resting my forehead against the chilled window, I thought, Oh no.

Theodore Saxon was bringing me back to life.

19

A FOR EFFORT

Mondays were garbage.

I rolled to my back, throwing a pillow over my face. Verily was awake, her happy foot-trots pitter-pattering across the apartment floor as she showered, turned on the news, prepared a breakfast smoothie with the sound of a thousand razors shearing together and…

Brewed coffee.

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