Page 12 of Grave Games

His smile was slow and so full of sin I couldn’t decide if I should freak out or start panting. “Don’t mind if I do. You look amazing, by the way. I like your hair down like that. It’s way longer and curlier than I thought it was.”

“Thanks.” It took all my strength not to put my hand to the crazy mop of curls I optimistically called my hair. “I’m not allowed to wear it down at work, and I hate my curls with a grand passion, but… Thanks.”

“You already said that.”

“So I did.”

“Tell me, Shy,” he murmured as I closed the door behind us. I immediately considered opening it again when all the air evaporated from the room when I turned to find him looking at me like a starving man and I was an all-you-can-eat buffet. “Did you dress up like that for me?”

Yes. “Uh… like this?”

“You knew I was coming over, yeah? I told you I’m getting you some gloves today.”

“Um, about that. I was just on my way out when you buzzed, so… I guess your timing is impeccable. Five more minutes and you would have missed me.”

His expression froze over. “Going out?”

I nodded, torn between relief and frustration that my brain had finally produced a plausible excuse for why I looked the way I did. Not for the world was I ready to admit—to him or myself—that I’d dressed for the possibility of seeing him today.

“So who’s coming to pick you up?” Without warning he crossed the small living room and was suddenly in my space, his face no more than a few inches from mine. “What’s his name?”

“Name?” The sharp questions and sudden invasion of my personal space startled me enough to loosen up the guard I had on my mouth. “What the hell are you talking about? Who says I’m going out with anyone?”

“One, you don’t have your little pickup here, so you’re not driving yourself anywhere. And two, no chick goes to the trouble of turning up the heat like you’ve obviously done if they’re flying solo.”

“Turning up the heat?”

“The way you look, with your bedhead hair and fuck-me-now makeup. Everything about your look says you’re on the prowl, and it sure as hell isn’t for gloves, so answer the question. Who’s coming to pick you up? I won’t be asking a third time.”

My temper sparked. “I don’t care how many times you ask the question, the answer’s going to be the same—no one. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Don’t bullshit me.” To my amazement and growing alarm, he grabbed my upper arms with hands that weren’t painful, just hard. Hard in a way that I knew I wouldn’t be free of his grasp until he decided that was what he wanted. “You don’t want to tell me, fine. Not a problem. But you can bet every fucking dime you have that I’m staying right here until whatever swinging dick shows up, so I can educate that sonofabitch in no uncertain terms that you’re my property now and no one else’s.”

My jaw dropped so hard it was a wonder it didn’t hit the floor. “Property? Did you just call me yourproperty?”

The last word ended on an enraged squeak, and that seemed to get through to him. His hold loosened a fraction, as if he suspected he held a tiger by the tail, and he wasn’t far off. “Don’t get pissed,” he warned, but he was about a dozen words past that point. “That term isn’t a bad thing in my world, so don’t get your hackles up, you hear me?”

With a growl I wrenched out of his hold completely, but otherwise stood my ground. “What I hear is a guy who wants to be thrown out on his butt, and I’m just the badass chick to do it.”

“So you can clear me out for the swinging dick coming to pick you up?”

“There is no swinging dick and no one’s coming to pick me up!”

“Then why the hell are you dressed like that?”

“I dressed like this thinking you might show up, all right? I admit it so I hope you’re happy, but now I’ve changed my mind and I want you out of—”

The hot flare of triumph in his eyes was the only warning I got.

He grabbed me again, this time pulling me hard up against him while his mouth slammed down over mine. It was an instant, chaotic assault on all my senses. The hands that pulled me into his embrace moved to roam down my back straight to my butt, where his fingers dug in deep at the undersides of my cheeks. I gasped as he massaged that place no one had ever touched, before he semi-lifted me off the ground to grind me against him with shocking boldness, and suddenly I had no choice but to be aware of his growing erection.

Don’t freak out, don’t freak out, don’t freak out…

I was twenty-two now, an official adult, and this was what adults did when they were attracted to each other. And there was no mistake—I was attracted to Romeo. Every time we were in the same room together, my body ran about ten degrees hotter than normal. I couldn’t seem to keep my eyes off him, because he was all I wanted to see. My hands ached to know what he felt like under all those winter layers, while my nerves tingled as if in anticipation for his touch. Logically it made sense that I wanted him to touch me, kiss me. Just like I wanted to do with him.

But then, what came next was what I feared would send me into a PTSD spiral.

The breath backed up in my lungs. For the most part, I'd lived a sheltered life. The one time I’d dared to go out with a boy I didn’t know well had destroyed my family. Destroyedme. I didn't know what to do with a boy let alone a man, and Romeo was seriously a man. Like, the chest-thumping, over-the-top variety kind of man. I didn’t know what to do with his brutal gropes or searing deep kisses, or even my wet panties that I suddenly couldn’t wait to kick off. This wasn't me. It was allhim.

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