Page 70 of Obey

“Put me down you Neanderthal!”

“That’s not your safeword.” He pops me on the butt with an open palm, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t like it. “Simmer down.” He says it as though he knows it’s like pouring gasoline on an open flame and doesn’t care.

I wiggle harder—but not too hard—if I actually break free of the angry man’s grasp my face is going to hit the floor first. Arching my back helps me get a view of the rest of the group. They’re watching, but no one’s moving. I have no clue where Jagger’s taking me until we go behind the bar. He kick-slams the door of a room behind him, and plops me onto my feet.

“You can’t keep me forever, it’s kidnapping. And all those people out there witnessed my abduction. And I’m sure those women like me better than they like you, so they’ll totally tell the police you have me when they come looking. And they will come looking you know.” If I don’t stop talking, he can’t tell me hedoesn’t want me. At least that’s what my brain keeps repeating to me as each sentence tumbles out of my mouth. When I come to a grinding halt, the air hangs heavy between us. After a long beat, he purses his lips.

“You are not playing with Archer.” He’s pointing at me.

“You’re not the boss of me, Jagger.” I point right back. “You gave up the right to decide who touches me when you ran away scared last week and left me at the hotel by myself.”

There’s a “you go girl,” from the other side of the door, and it’s obvious his friends have crowded around outside to continue the show.

“I left before you could tell me to leave.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

He drags a hand over his pained face. “You were with your hoity-toity fancy parents, Talia. You really think after they’ve spent years trying to get you to marry Harry, they’d so much as let you date someone like me? A black, sexual deviant, mechanic? No. I did what I had to do to protect both of us from a painful ending.”

“Ha.” Is this guy for real? “Is that what you think you did?”

His brow twitches as he falls silent.

“Because all I saw was a coward running away in the snow leaving me to figure out what the heck happened between us and process everything all by myself.” I stride toward him. “And isn’t that something you should have been around for? Or at the very least, made yourself available for?”

His shoulders sag at my unspoken accusation.

“What happened to aftercare?” I wave my arms wide in question. “You heard me when I told my parents I wasn’t marrying Harry. The end. Forever. No take backsies. I’m done with him. I also told them I’d date who I want, and your race isn’t a reason for me not to date you, being a douche canoe, however, is.” Point to Talia.

His nostrils flare. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be. Do you have any idea how upset I’ve been over the past week?”

He grunts. I really need to get a better read on those grunts. Is it a yes-grunt? A no-grunt? An I-don’t-care grunt? Where are we with the grunt?

It’s my shoulders that sag now, I’m tired of being confrontational and yelling at him even if it’s all justified anger. It’s exhausting. My jaw trembles as I blink back tears. “The only reason I came here was because your hoodie stopped smelling of you. And it’s stupid. I bet you haven’t even thought about me since you walked out the hotel door last week.”

I lift my hand. “I’m not looking for compliments or affirmation.” I’m totally looking for affirmation, but I don’t want to seem any more needy or desperate by saying it out loud.

“Look. I get it, we barely know each other. But those few days together actually meant something to me, and seeing you walk away like that, without so much as a look back—Jagger, you didn’t even look back.” I sniff. Now mad with myself that I’m crying instead of swinging my finger at him in a rage. “I know that’s what you do, play with people and leave. I knew going in. But I thought...” Another sniff.

“I don’t know what I thought. But it felt like more than the play scenes I read about in my books. Was I wrong? Did I misread everything? Was I seeing things that weren’t there? What about in the bathtub? Was that all a lie?”

Someone outside the door sniffs too.

“No, baby girl. You didn’t.” He steps toward me, brushing my hair out of my face. I’ve never missed the caress of another human being as much as I’ve missed the way his fingertips tickle the side of my face.

“You can’t call me that.” More tears. Why do I cry when I’m mad? I’m not weak. I just have feelings. “You can’t make me feel things and then take it away, Jagger it’s not fair.”

I sound whiny, I can hear it, but I don’t care.

He brushes his thumb over my lips, making me fall silent. “I didn’t forget about you. I thought about you every second of every day, and the reason I didn’t look back at the hotel was because if I did I wouldn’t have been strong enough to leave.”

“You’re right.” His thumb stays on my lips. “I got scared. I got scared you’d fall back into your old life, Harry, your parents... I was afraid they’d influence your opinion of me.”

“That’s not true.” I shake my head. “That’s bullpoop.”

“Bullpoop?” His lips twitch.

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