Page 21 of Surge of Fire

“Sam.” My voice is more than a warning, it’s a threat.

“Will?” she says, her tone that of an angel in disguise.

He smiles at her. “I’ll go wherever you want.” He leans in. “And do whatever you want.”

I shove him back. He stumbles, nearly falling over the log.

“What the fuck?” he says, then leaps to his feet and shoves me back.

Fire races through my veins. I’m ready for this fight. I’ve beendreamingof this fight since the moment I saw him talking to Sam. I charge toward him, but Sam is between us in an instant. Her much smaller hands press against my chest, and I love the feeling of her hands on me.

Maybe it’s the liquor burning through me, but I lean into her, some of my fight fading away as I catch her intoxicating scent.

“Stop it,” she tells me, breathing hard. “You arenotfighting Will.”

“And you’re not going home with him,” I tell her, realizing that I’m panting.

“You don’t get a say in what I do,” she says, her green eyes filled with anger.

I lean in so close my lips nearly touch her ear. “If you try to go home with him, I’ll kill him.”

She gasps. “You don’t mean that.”

“Try me.” And now my words aredefinitelya threat.

She shoves me a little and whirls around. “Will, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Stomping off from the clearing, I follow her through the darkness. She might be mad, but I’m not letting her walk home alone in the dark, no matter how much she hates me. Several times, she looks back at me, but doesn’t say a word.

We’re nearly to the cabin when she storms back toward me. I’m feeling somewhere between amused and concerned as I shift to lean against a nearby cabin, waiting for the storm to unleash. Waiting for the most beautiful girl in the world to tear my head off.

“What gives you the right?” she asks, pounding her finger into my chest.

“The right?” I ask her, feeling dumb. Loving being this close to her.

“The right to tell me who I can and cannot sleep with.”

Something inside of me aches. “Sam, don’t…”

“Don’t what? Don’t call you on your bullshit? Well, guess what, Aydan, I’m not a child any more as much as you still seem to still think I am–”

“I don’t think you’re a child.” Of course I don’t see her as a child. I see her as an angel wrapped in the flesh of a seductress. I see her as all I’ve ever wanted: temptation, love, longing, and need.

“Then what’s the problem?” she demands. She moves a little closer, and her scent comes again, intoxicating and sweet. “Why do you care who I sleep with?”

I don’t know what to say. Not the truth. “You deserve better than that asshole.”

“You’re telling me you’ve never been with a girl just for one night? A girl who ‘doesn’t deserve you’ just for fun?” She gives a sarcastic laugh. “Granger has told me about yourteamof girls.”

I groan.Has that idiot actually been telling her how I waste my time?“He exaggerates.”

She shakes her head full of beautiful red hair, her tone cutting. “Tell me you’ve never just picked some random girl to take home and fuck.”

Of course I have, but Sam isn’t like those girls. Any man who gets to touch her is the luckiest man in the world. It shouldn’t be some random drunk asshole who doesn’t appreciate her. But “Don’t say fuck,” is all I manage, my words barely a whisper.

She shifts closer. “Tell me. Tell me that you’ve never met some hot girl, and fucked her brains out… just using her to scratch an itch. Some random girl you deserved better than.”

I run my hands through my hair, imagining Sam with some guy she just took home to fuck. To scratch an itch. Some guy who would never be good enough for her. A guy touching her, tasting her. Someone who doesn’t love her, someone who doesn’t worship her.

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