Page 22 of Dangerous

He nodded, picking at his salad with his fork. “Sure. Guess you’re pretty pissed at them for making you get hitched, huh?”

I shrugged, opting to deflect rather than respond. “So I take it you’re the oldest, since you’re the one who got chosen to get married off for the business’ sake? You said you had five brothers, right?”

Blaine grunted. “I’m the third oldest. You would have seen Marcus and the twins at the wedding—they’re all younger than me. Jeremy and Isaac were… indisposed, so I was up.”

“Oh.” Something he’d said in our session together niggled at the forefront of my mind, and I frowned. “You said one of your brothers went to prison. I assume that was either Jeremy or Isaac, then?”

He finally looked up from his plate then, but the anger that flashed in his steely gaze made me wish he hadn’t.

And then it dawned on me—I’d referenced something from probably the only time in recent history that Blaine Steel had allowed himself to be vulnerable.Ihad witnessed a rare slip in his carefree, all-powerful façade, and it didn’t take a psychology degree to know that he’d regretted it the moment it happened, the way he acted toward me after. And now I’d been stupid enough to remind him.

Perhaps an appropriate response would have been to pretend like I didn’t notice the way his knuckles whitened around his grip on the fork, or the murderous glare he was leveling at me. Or maybe even outright fear and a stuttered apology would have been a good option.

In hindsight, pretty much anything other than what I did would have been a good choice.

“Oh, give me abreak! What, so I have to pretend like I don’t know one of your brothers is in jail? Is your ego reallythatfragile, Blaine?” I tossed my fork and knife down on the table, overwhelmed with frustration. “So you’ve got issues with your family—big deal! It’s not like I’m going to tell anyone the big, scary crime lord went to see a therapist, so you can knock that glaring right off.”

“You should learn respect.” Blaine’s voice was a low growl, the threat in his words emphasized perfectly by the deep rumble. “And I don’teverwant to hear you talk about that again, are we clear?”

“Are weclear?Yeah, I guess we are. It’s perfectly clear to me that you have zero respect for anyone but yourself, you sexist prick!Ishould learn respect? How about you earn it, for once in your life?” I didn’t know when I’d gotten out of my seat, but when Blaine pushed back his chair with a loud screeching to stand up on the other side of the table, I realized I was already standing up myself, leaning over the table to shout at him.

“Watch it.”Blaine’s otherwise light gray eyes were nearly black with rage as he put both hands on the table and leaned in so he could glower down at me from his much higher vantage point. “I’ve been more than accommodating with you up until now. Push me one more time, I fucking dare you.”

I have no idea what idiotic demon possessed me then, but the next thing I knew, I’d grabbed my half-empty wine glass. My arm was midway through the slinging motion before my sanity snapped at least somewhat back, and I looked on as if watching a movie on half speed as the red wine I’d been sipping throughout the meal sailed through the air and connected with Blaine’s face.

Three seconds passed in complete silence as I stared at him. My own anger was still boiling underneath the surface, but the absolute murderous rage in Blaine’s eyes as he stared me down with wine dripping from his chin made me realize I’d made a mistake. A really, really big mistake.

“I-I’m sorry. I don’t know why I… did that.” My apology died into a whisper when Blaine slowly raised one large hand to wipe the red liquid off his face, and then cracked his neck without taking his eyes off me, or even blinking.

Survival instincts—finally—kicked in, and my brain quickly abandoned “fight”mode, opting instead for the much wiser “flight”option. I spun around on my heel and practically threw myself across the dining room, grabbing on to the door frame to turn the corner as fast as possible.

Behind me, the loud screeching of a chair being kicked out of the way made my already frantic heart jolt into overdrive. Its pounding against my ribs matched my feet’s pace as I ran as fast as I could down the hallway to the stairs. I didn’t think of what would happen once I reached my room—all I knew was that I needed to put as much distance between myself and the lethal killer chasing me, and that one room was the only place my panicked brain connected with any shred of safety.

I made it to the top of the first flight of stairs, but when I grasped on to the banister to reach the next level, he caught me.

Strong hands grabbed around my hips andpulled,and I was yanked backward so roughly I completely lost my footing.

I yelped as I flew through the air, arms flailing for purchase, and then I was on my back on the landing outside Blaine’s room, my impact with the hard wooden floor thankfully softened somewhat by the thick rug I’d had Greg put there earlier today.

I didn’t have many moments to be thankful for my design decision. Less than two seconds after I was on my back on the floor, Blaine crouched over me, pinning my wrists next to my head with his large hands while my lower body was strapped down by his knees. I was trapped.

“Let me go!” I pulled uselessly on my hands and tried to shift my hips to throw him off me, but I might as well have tried to dislodge a boulder.

Blaine growled, sounding so much like an enraged animal that I couldn’t hold back a small whimper. He was so much stronger than me, he could rip me apart with his bare hands if he wanted—and right now, it very much looked like he wanted.

Yet deep down, something in my core—something undoubtedly really stupid—didn’t believe he would actually hurt me. The startling moment that thought rooted itself in my stomach was strong enough to pull me out of my fear

Blaine stared down at me, his chest heaving as hard as mine and his face drawn in a mask of anger. And suddenly, it all seemed so completely ridiculous. I, a trained psychologist, for crying out loud, had resorted to throwing wine in a man’s face. And he, a scary-ass criminal, had chased me down and was now pinning me to the floor. We seemed to have reached a thorough stalemate.

The amused giggle slipped out of my mouth before I managed to stop it.

“Sorry, sorry,” I gasped in between my still labored breathing. My giggles died down as I stared up into his dark eyes. Behind his fury there was something else. It took me several seconds to realize that it was a glimpse of what lay behind his normally impenetrable shields. For a few, short moments, I saw past the smartarse, the ruthlessness he normally wore like a mask.

It only lasted a few second. Then raw and unbridled lust washed away anything and everything else, and his lips crashed against mine.

Twelve

Mira

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