Page 13 of Hellraiser

“Then why the hell are you out here?”

“I wish I fuckin’ knew,” he grunted.

I didn’t know everything about Dre, but I knew enough. I’d met men like him over my twenty-five years—overly possessive and mad at the world. He might’ve been five, maybe six years my senior, if that. He started the engine and peeled out of the clubhouse’s parking lot, driving like a bat out of hell.

“Where the hell are we going?” I snapped.

“You said you wanted to leave, right? Sit the fuck back and shut up.”

I scoffed before easing back into the passenger seat, feeling the cool leather against my skin.

I didn’t reply immediately, focusing my attention on the road. His knuckles gripped the steering wheel. He turned his gaze to me, meeting my fiery eyes with a calm intensity after a moment of tense silence.

“You calm now?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because who the fuck else was going to make sure you’re okay?”

I let out a short bark of bitter laughter. “Always playing the gallant white knight.”

The teasing tone returned in his voice. “Only if you play the damsel in distress.”

I shook my head. “Trust me, I’m over that.”

Dre smirked. “Too bad. I’ve always had a thing for damsels.”

Silence filled the car again. I studied him from the passenger seat, my eyes softening from their previous fire.

“Where are you taking me, Dre, really?”

Instead of answering, he pulled into the parking lot of a local park. It was so late that we were the only vehicle in the lot.

“Here. Happy now?” he quizzed, but there was no heat behind it.

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

I bit my bottom lip and glared at him for a few moments. The surprise in his eyes was almost satisfying.Almost.

“I can’t tell if you like me or hate me,” I muttered.

He met my gaze and answered honestly. “You hate me, Mercy. I hate you back. That’s our thing. I protect you. We bicker. I drive you up a wall.”

“Yeah, you do. I’m starting to wonder why you do it so much, especially since you ghosted me after that kiss.”

He choked on a laugh, his eyes widening in disbelief. “What? Nah. It wasn’t like that… I mean you and me… it’s not like that. You annoy the shit out of me,” he stammered out, looking everywhere but at me.

I leaned back against my seat and watched him fumble his response. “Whatever. You can drop me off right here if you lured me into this truck to rub salt in my wound.”

He chuckled lowly. “The last thing I came here to do was rub salt in your wound, Mercy. I drove you here to tend to it since no one else would.”

I rolled my eyes. “As if you’d let them if they tried.”

“You’re probably right about that.”

An unfamiliar heat replaced the tension in the truck. Both of us knew it wasn’t hate sparking the flame.

“But for the record,” Dre added, turning to face me fully, our bodies were mere inches apart in the confined space of his truck, “I don’t hate you. You just rile me up and piss me off so bad I think I do.”

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