Page 14 of Dangerous

“Molesting you? You just came all over my hand! While moaning my name, I might add. Jesus fucking Christ, what about a ‘thank-you’ instead of kneeing me in the gut?”

“A ‘thank-you’?” Her voice turned shrill, and I winced as it went right through my brain. She leveled a glare at me through the black-rimmed glasses that could have turned a more easily intimidated man into stone. “Right! Thenthank youfor taking advantage at me while I was drunk and emotionally fucked up after the worst week of my life. Which, I might add, is a pretty goddamn bad week. And while I’m at it, thank you so much for marrying me against my will and ruining my life! Now kindly get the fuck out of my bed!”

Awesome. We were back to this, then.

Something that seemed an awful lot like disappointment nestled in the pit of my belly. I had no idea why—perhaps the first-class fuck had given drunk-me some half-baked hope that this arrangement wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Drunk-me was a moron.

Letting the bizarre sense of disappointment be washed away by my general annoyance—at her, at my father and most definitely at my once again hard and hopeful cock—I got out of bed and stretched, rolling my shoulders to ease some of the irritation out of my body.

“Fine. If this is how you want it, this is how you’ll get it.” I shot her a dark look over my shoulder, letting her know exactly who she was dealing with. She might know I had a weakness, and her body might draw me in like a moth to a flame, but I was still Blaine Steel. And like it or not, she was going to have to deal with being my wife. My unwanted wife.

“Get dressed and pack your things. I’ll send one of my men up to get you after exactly forty-five minutes. He will help you get your stuff down to the lobby.Do not be late.If I have to come get you myself, you’re going to be sorry. We’ll discuss the rest of the rules you’ll have to live by once we’re home.”

Satisfied with her dumbstruck expression, I bent to snatch my clothes up from the floor and left the bedroom with as much of a door-slam as my head could handle.

If she insisted on making life hard, then I could certainly play that game too. No one bested a Steel, and the sooner the obnoxious little shrink learned that lesson, the better.

Eight

Mira

Don’t leave the house without an escort

Don’t go into the shed

Don’t invite anyone over

Don’t ask questions about visitors

Don’t speak to visitors unless spoken to

Don’t open the door without permission

Stop sulking

I glared at Blaine from behind the kitchen counter, where I’d been watching him write down the “house rules” in big, black letters on the fridge. My ire had grown for every line, but the final one pushed me over the edge, my irritation finally overwhelming whatever fear was left from the drive here. Being surrounded by goons was such a sharp reminder of exactly what sort of family I’d gotten married into, and Blaine had been quiet and broody ever since our confrontation in the morning. On top of how the morning had started out, I’d been too shaken to feel anything but the return of my anxiety.

That is, until the arsehole started makingThe List.

“Maybe I’d stop ‘sulking’if you stopped acting like I’m your prisoner. What’s number eight going to be? That I have to ask before going to the bathroom?”

Blaine rubbed at his neck as if he was trying to work out a particularly bothersome knot, but he didn’t turn around to look at me. In fact, he hadn’t looked at me all day, since he left our bedroom in a huff. “I don’t give a fuck about what you do when we’re alone, as long as you do it inside the house. These rules are as much for your sake as they are mine.”

“Go on. I can’t wait to hear how it’s for my own sake that I can’t have visitors.” I was pretty pleased with my dry tone.

He finally turned around then, and looked at me with one eyebrow cocked. “It’s been a while since you’ve lived in this world, hasn’t it?”

“You mean, since I’ve had to live among criminals? Yeah, it has.”

Blaine capped the black marker he’d been using to write on the American-style fridge, crossed both arms over his chest so his muscles bulged against the strain of his T-shirt, and leaned a shoulder against the appliance. “My family has a lot of enemies, and you’re a soft and squishy target. I can guarantee you that every single one of those enemies is trying to find a way to get to you as we speak. So say you invite a friend over, and someone watched them walk in the door here. You think many of the men who are out to get me would hesitate to snatch them off the street to find out anything they might know about us?”

I paled at that implication. No, I knew that sort of men all too well. They wouldn’t hesitate to use torture if they thought they could gain an advantage.

“Want to order a pizza? If it’s not checked by one of our guys, you have no guarantee it’s not delivered by a hitman in disguise. Feel like taking a wander around the neighborhood? Those same men who would snatch up your friends in a second would do much, much worse to you. So you might think of yourself as a prisoner if that floats your boat, but I’m sure you’ll agree it’s a lot better than the alternative.”

I bit my lip at his challenging stare, more than a little annoyed at his excellent use of logic. I wasn’t in the mood to back down. “And the shed? What horrors will befall me if I dare venture into the backyard? You keeping a magical rose in a glass jar or something?”

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