Page 35 of Reckless Temptation

She looked ahead, not glancing at me. “I don’t owe you any answers to anything you might ask.”

“Ooh. You’re tough.”

“I’m also tired.” Now she faced me for a second, droll and cool. “I’m tired of your fucking bullshit.”

I feigned shock. “Is that how a prim and proper lady talks?”

“It would seem you don’t want the world to see me as prim or proper with that painting.”

“Hmm.” I shoved my hands in my pockets because I was that tempted to touch her and make her stop walking so she’d face me. I was still desperate for her attention. And I hated the power she had over me. Having her light-brown eyes directed at me, only me, was becoming an addiction. “I recall your saying that you didn’t care what others thought of you.”

“I said I didn’t care whatyouthink of me.”

I ground my molars, riled up to push her buttons but also to grin that she’d be so tough with me.

“But now you know that I do.”

She furrowed her brow, facing forward.

“I think about you a lot, Sabrina.”

Tiffany suggested that I could ruin her by fucking her and letting that scandalous news spread. Serious law student sleeping with the reckless bad boy artist. That would get people talking.

But now, I was excited to fuckwithher. I was only beginning with the games I could play with her. Because if there were a chance she was attracted to me, I could wreak havoc on her in that regard.

“I think?—”

“Save it.” She rolled her eyes. “Save it for whenever you need another muse to paint. Save it for when you’re lonely and pathetically so empty that you need the sick pleasure of trying to make me miserable. I don’t care, Nick.” With another short glare my way, she shook her head. “I don’t have time for guys like you. And you willneverwin. Not at this. I won’t let you get close to where you can hurt me.”

Every one of her words stoked the fire inside me. I wasn’t sure when the loathing turned so sharply into lust, but I couldn’t let her get away with shutting me down like that. “You…”

Again, she was ignoring me. This time, it didn’t seem like she was putting effort into tuning me out. With a gasp and her attention directed ahead of us, it seemed that she was acutelydistracted by the sounds of a man beating on a woman in an alley up ahead.

I frowned, looking that way too. But before I could open my mouth to reply to her, she was gone.

Sabrina took off running toward the sign of trouble, shouting at the man to leave that woman alone.

My mouth dropped. “What the?—”

I watched as Sabrina sprinted up to the woman crying out for help. She put her arms up to uselessly deflect the man beating on her. Crouching lower and lower, she futilely resisted this man’s violence.

Until Sabrina showed up.

“Leave her alone!” She intercepted the man’s fists, stopping the attacker from reaching the woman he’d dragged back here.

Seeing that man’s hand touching Sabrina’s arm was all it took for me to lose control. I snapped. My shock at Sabrina’s run over there was cut short. Anger lit a fuse of action within me, and I was running to the scene.

I’d be damned if some other asshole used my painting of her to jerk off.

And I’d be damned if some other man dared to hit her.

Sabrina wasn’t mine. She never would be mine. But there was nooffswitch to this streak of possessiveness I felt toward her.

“Get the fuck off her!” I lunged in to pull him away from Sabrina and the stranger she was trying to help out. “What is wrong with you?” I roared it at her, but it seemed she didn’t think my question was for her.

She had to be insane, rushing into a violent scene like that. She couldn’t seriously think that she’d be able to ward off this big asshole. Shocked that she’d put herself in harm’s way—without even thinking it through—I resisted the urge to tug her away and demand an answer for why she’d rushed toward a fight like that.

“Fuck off,” the man growled, trying to reach forward and get the woman again.

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