Page 8 of Bitter Sweet Love

Dez’s gaze traveled over my face slowly, and a flush followed. I tensed when his stare dipped lower. The thin tank top left nothing to the imagination.

Nothing was safe about this.

For a moment, I froze. The way he stared at me... well, when any other Warden looked at me that way, I felt nothing more than annoyance, but I wanted Dez to look. A strange fullness expanded my chest and it was suddenly too hot in the room.

One side of his lips curved. “I could get used to... this every morning.”

I sucked in a breath when his lashes flicked up. Yanking up the cover, I glared at him. “Keep dreaming, bud.”

He chuckled as he stretched out, resting his cheek on his fist. “Do you have studies this morning?”

“No. I’ve finished. I’m done.” All the Wardens were homeschooled and, as with humans, most of us completed our studies around age eighteen. We were provided with a lot of book smarts, but many of us, especially the females, had no real sense of the world. I peeked up at him. “Why?”

“Good. We can start on those conditions you mentioned now.”

“Now?” Stretching up, I looked at the alarm clock. “It’s not even seven!”

He grinned. “You have a lot of conditions and I’m not wasting a moment.”

Well, I’d kind of brought that on myself.

“And I also have a condition,” he added.

“What?” I sat up, eyes narrowing. “You can’t do that now. We already agreed—”

“We didn’t sign a binding contract, Jas,” he said dryly as he pushed up. As big as he was, he took over the whole bed.

“What is your condition?”

My insides coiled tight at the slow smile that crept over his face. “That we complete each of your conditions with a kiss.”

I gaped at him. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” he murmured. “You’re getting something out of this, so should I.”

“Well, that’s real nice to hear.”

He shrugged large shoulders.

“My company should be enough,” I shot back.

“Your company is, but take it or leave it, Jas. You want to do these things and I want you. And you want to play this game, so I’m going to play.”

The stubbornness he’d displayed as a boy when he wanted something hadn’t changed. Usually it had been reserved for arguments over video games or wanting to hunt before he was old enough, but never had it been about me.

My heart pounded in my chest as I stared at him. I had the sinking sensation that somehow the conditions I’d established last night had played right into what he wanted?and now he had the upper hand.

You’d think a Warden, with his ability to phase and turn his skin into granite and rapidly heal, wouldn’t be petrified of being inside a car.

But Dez looked as if he was going to be sick.

Both hands were planted on the dashboard as he stared out the windshield of the SUV. “Right! Turn the steering wheel right!”

I turned right and the car jerked to the side, tires uneven on the shoulder, jolting us. “Sorry.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have taken the SUV,” he grumbled.

I giggled.

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