Page 88 of Lace 'em Up

I don’t like it.

And…I don’t like him.

I don’t know him…and I don’t like him, and that’s enough. My instincts are screaming to step back, but I don’t have room to because he’s come close, because he’s positioned himself between where I’m leaning back against the wall and the open space of the hall, his big body boxing me in.

Trapping me.

Like Phillip had.

Yup. Definitely a creep.

And maybe a dangerous one.

But…I’ve been through worse. Phillip. My sisters. My stepmom.

The verbal abuse.

The…physical.

So, I know that I might bend, but I also know I won’t break.

I straighten my shoulders, lift my chin. I may be a nice person, may have a soft heart for those I care about—furry or otherwise—but I was raised in a den of vipers.

I can deal with a hockey player, even one who makes my spidey sense tingle.

Which—despite the situation—makes my lips twitch.

Because as a certain gorgeous hockey player with a protective streak a mile wide pointed out not that long ago, I am very good at being a prickly princess.

Something I channel right in this moment, lifting my chin and managing to stare down my nose at one Pat Buchanan, even though he’s a good foot taller and, likely, at least a hundred pounds heavier than me. “Can I help you?” I ask all…well, prickly princess-like.

He grins wolfishly, body swaying closer. “I can think of a whole lot of ways that you can help me, gorgeous.”

Barf.

Just…barf.

“No thanks,” I say dismissively, deliberately sliding my eyes from his and turning my head away.

I want to escape, but considering that Pat the Asshole (as King has coined him) is still between me and escape, I’m not exactly free to do so. Instead, I scan the open space behind him, looking for my way out…or maybe for someone—like King or Rome or Cam or, hell, Jean-Michel since it’s his freaking team and he’s always managed to look out for me in the past—to come rescue me.

Alas—and now I really sound like a prickly princess—what I can see of the hall remains empty.

Where’s that hot hockey player on his white horse (or motorcycle) to save me?

Ugh.

I guess this prickly princess—no, this cactus queen is going to have to save herself.

The humanity.

But at least the sarcasm has centered me, pushed down the fear, bolstered the spikey.

I put up a hand. “You’re too close,” I say firmly. “Back up.”

Unfortunately, my words don’t have an effect on Pat.

In fact, he just leans closer, dropping a palm onto the wall next to my head, so near that I can scent his cologne—or rather, his cologne changes from clinging to the air to filling my nose, inundating my senses.

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