Page 36 of Hate Mates

That wasn’t the threat it should have been. Not for the likes of him. “Make my day.”

Standing upright, I reached for the towel I had hanging, but just as my grasp closed around it, he tore it out of my hold, his eyes working over me.

He rubbed the corners of his mouth, the motion making my stomach flip. “Just as pretty as I remembered.”

Liar. I drew in a stiff inhale, the scream gathering in my lungs because fuck him. He stalked across the room, slapping a hand to my mouth, his opposite arm banding around my waist, holding my wet body to his. “I’ll give you a real reason to scream. Why ruin all the fun so soon?”

My teeth closed around the fleshy curve of his palm, biting down as hard as I could. His pained hiss slid between his clenched teeth, the sound morphing into a groan from somewhere deep in his chest. “There’s that fire I love, Sut.”

Shoving against him, he let me go, careening backward with a playful laugh that did something to me it shouldn’t. “Get out.” My voice quivered.Fuck.

Damien leaned against the bathroom counter, thickly veined and heavily tattooed forearms proudly on display, palms braced. I squinted in the darkness, regretting my choice to bathe in the dark—what did he have tattooed on him?

A lock of his ebony hair fell over his forehead in such a devastatingly debonaire way, and I resented how my body responded to him.

How he sucked up all the air in the room.

How hard he made it to breathe.

To exist.

“Please.”

“You’re beautiful when you beg, Sutton,” he husked, the words sending need careening urgently between my legs.

I bristled, blowing out a loud breath.

Fine. If he wasn’t going to leave, I would. I stepped out of the tub, nearly eating shit under my slippery soles, ignoring the heat of his predatory appraisal as I wrapped myself in another towel and stalked by him.

Damien pursued lazily, hands in the pockets of his grey sweatpants.

I pointed to the stairs. “Go.”

“I don’t think you really want me to.” His throat worked around a feminine moan, his best attempt at mocking me freeing,“‘Damien’”

My cheeks burned, my limbs buzzing. This wasn’t happening. Storming to where I’d laid my clothes out, I froze, finding them gone.

I spun in place, searching for my suitcase.

That was gone, too.

Son of a bitch. Baring my teeth at him, my shoulders vaulted to my ears. “Where the hell are my clothes?”

“Like I said,”—he closed the distance at a slow, painstaking pace—“you have a pretty body.”

But not much else, right?My body. Not my mind or my broken heart. Just my body. It reminded me of a time when I’d left the house to go to the grocery store and overheard a man talking about me on the phone.

“Rocking bod, but half her face is fucked.”

I was still a good person. My life still held meaning, didn’t it? Or was this really all I was?

My vision blurred.

What the hell was the matter with me? I’d spent days fortifying myself, gearing up for this exact psychological warfare I knew he’d subject me to the moment I was in his presence, so why was I cracking now?

“I’ve never asked you for anything before. Just give me my clothes and leave me alone.”

“That’s not true.” Damien sniffed, pursing his lips. “You’ve asked me for plenty of things, Sutton. I think it’s about time you held up your end of the deal.”

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