Page 42 of Heartless

“Keep going,” Cass invites, a warning glittering in his eyes. “Keep pushing me, Winnie. Just keep being aggressive and wanting the last word. Keep going down this road andsee where it gets you.”

This time, a full shudder travels through my body, and I close my eyes hard at his words, finding it hard to swallow under his firm grip. “What if I do?” I ask finally, my anxiety warring with my desire to push him. “Would you hurt me?”

The intensity in his gaze falters briefly, and something like a surprised grimace twitches at his lips. “Not like you’re implying,” he tells me finally, relaxing his grip just a little. “But I’ll certainly teach you a lesson about yourmouth, since you’ve clearly not been taught it before.”

My stomach twists with something other than fear, and with a shock I realize that while I’m still angry and nervous as hell, I’m not actuallyafraidof Cass.

Without replying, I dig my nails into his wrist, bracing my right foot on the floor as much as I can before kicking out at him with my left. “Oh, really?” He grabs my leg, gripping under my knee and yanking it up until I yelp and scramble for balance. “Don’t look at me like that. You’re the one who decided to kick. Why don’t you settle the fuck down, sweetheart, and maybe we can have an adult conversation instead of you acting like a toddler who isn’t getting her way?—”

“Fuck you,” I sneer. “If you won’t give me back my phone, I’ll take yours. Even if that means—” He whirls us around with a sigh, shoving me face first onto his bed.

“What does that mean, hmm?” he asks, prowling around the bed. He digs into his pocket and pulls out his phone while I watch, laying it on a shelf between two plants. “What are yougoing to do to me, Winnie?” There’s a challenge in his eyes that makes my blood heat in my veins, and I sit back on my knees, panting, before scrambling to my feet.

“I’ll make you sorry you asked,” I snap. Though, that’s a vague way of admitting I’m not exactly sure how I’ll either locate my phone or steal his. But the more I think about it, the more I realize going home is no longer my top priority for the situation. No, I want to prove him wrong. I want the last word, like always, and to prove that Cassian doesn’t get to make decisions for me or boss me around like he’s more than astrangerto me.

But something in me whispers that maybe, just maybe, that’s not all I really want.

“Come on then, princess. Make me sorry,” Cass taunts, lifting up a hand in a literal invitation. “Make me feel remorse for the first time in my life, won’t you?”

That brings me up short and I look at him, brows furrowed in slight surprise. “You don’t feel?—”

“Later.” He rolls his eyes. “Don’t ruin our game with feelings.” His words make me pause, and I can’t help studying his expression, even when he glares at me with irritation.

“Okay, all right. Don’t get your panties in a wad.” I hold my hands up, fingers splayed in surrender. “I get it, Isoget it. You missed me so much that you stole my phone so we’d spend quality time together. Since you figured that’s the only way to make me stick around.” I glance at his phone on the shelf as he stares at me, leaning on the wall beside it.

It’s an invitation.

It’s a fucking challenge.

“I think if I can grab your phone off that shelf, you should give me back mine and pay for my ride home,” I announce, the bed between us as I prop my hands on my hips.

“Oh, yeah?” He glances at his phone, then at me. “All right, but if you get something for winning, I get something for youlosing. When youcan’tget my phone from the shelf, which I won’t touch, by the way, I get to teach you a lesson. I get to teach you the consequences of running that pretty, snotty mouth of yours. Fair?”

It…doesn’t sound fair. Not one bit. My stomach twists into origami shapes and untwists rapidly, leaving me feeling a little nauseous in an anxious, expectant way. “You don’t think I can get it,” I accuse, striding a few steps closer to him.

He rolls his shoulders in a shrug. “I think you’re incredibly confident, and more than a little arrogant. Tell you what.” He still doesn’t move, doesn’t even tense as I take another two steps closer. “Quit whining about wanting to go home, sweetheart. Stop trying to get my phone, and we’ll go back to the couch to watch your favorite movie. We’ll order something incredibly unhealthy and greasy, and you can sleep off all of this. I’ll take you back home…eventually.”

“Oh, wow.” I drag out the word theatrically. “Gosh, that’s such a nice offer. Really generous. Do you know what I think, though?”

“What do you think?” he asks, voice weary, as if my attitude is tiring him out. I’d feel bad, maybe, if I didn’t see the gleam of excitement in the icy blue of his gaze.

In response, I smile sweetly at him…and launch the pillow my fingers are touching into his face. He jerks away from it, hands up to block it from hitting his face, just as I slide by him in the space between him and the bed. I duck when he reaches for me, hearing the low curses that fall from his lips as a thrill of satisfaction goes through me.

He’s too easy sometimes?—

His grip on my wrist is enough to pull a startled yelp from my mouth just as I’m reaching out for his phone. I feel a shiver of fear go through me just as he uses the momentum of mestaggering back to force me to keep going until I’m once again on my hands and knees on his bed.

But I don’t intend to give up so easily. Instead, I surge upward, pushing to my feet…or, well, that’s my goal at least. Before I can make much progress, he’s suddenly over me, a snarled chuckle in my ear as he keeps me on the bed with his own frame. “A pillow?” Cass growls in my ear as I pant. “You threw my fucking pillow at me?”

“You clearly needed to be humbled if this is your reaction to a pillow in your face,” I huff, bending my elbows enough that I can slam upward into him in an attempt to get him to fall backward off of me. Instead, I end up flush against his body with his arm wrapped around my waist.

“If someone needs to be humbled here, little girl, it is most definitely you. And luckily for both of us, I’ve been wanting to do it since you opened your mouth when I bought you hot chocolate. You know what else I think?”

“No, but I’m sure you’re going to—” He cuts me off by flipping me over, my back hitting the bed just as he crawls over me to straddle my hips, one hand at my throat as he surveys me coldly.

“I think you didn’t hearnoenough as a child. Being on your own and making your own decisions has made you a little arrogant, hasn’t it? Your nephew would do anything you say because he looks up to you. Reagan would never disagree with you because she’s in love with you. So you get away with all kinds of bullshit.”

“Do not,” I disagree instantly. “And Reagan isn’t in love with me, you weirdo.”

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