Page 64 of Hate Game

“Mason,” I yell into the darkness. “Mason, I think someone’s at your door.”

He’s in his bedroom.

Mason is an insomniac and a gamer. Combine those two things, and he is up until early morning but functions like a regular human at his job, living off a few hours of sleep. Lucky. I’m useless unless I get in a good seven hours.

There’s a rush of air at my back. I scoot closer to the cushion and bury my face in the fabric. The door opens, followed by heavy footfalls. Large arms wrap around my waist. I’m hoisted up and slung over a broad shoulder. I’m hanging upside down and staring at the carpet.

What the…?

“Get her damn boots,” A booming voice growls out.

“Malice?” I lift my upper torso to get a good view of him. “Put me down!”

“Zip it, Rue. I’m so pissed at you.”

He storms out the door. Mason follows us out with my boots in one hand and the black duffel in the other. I mouth, “Help me.”

He shakes his head and mouths back, “Your funeral.”

I glare.

He smirks.

Malice dumps me in the passenger seat of his car. He grabs my stuff from Mason and tosses the items in the back seat without saying a word. But his actions say it all. He slams the car door of his precious sports car, hits the start button, and peels out of the parking space in front of Mason’s townhouse.

I peek at the time on the dash. It’s midnight. The bewitching hour. Or more like the angry hour. Malice shifts gears and we’re speeding down the main road out of Mason’s neighborhood. I close my eyes and don’t open them until we’re parked.

We’re not at the house. Bare branches hang low. I crack open the window. There is silence except for the car’s engine. Were it summer, the weeping willow tree would hang over the car like an umbrella.

Malice shuts off the engine. We sit in silence. I turn on the music, hoping the tunes will drown out the anger rolling off his body as this noise that grates on my nerves. What right does he have to be mad at me because I decided to spend the night at my friend’s house? We weren’t the ones caught canoodling on the bed.

He shuts off the music and grips the steering wheel with his shoulders pulled to his core. “Do you have any clue how I felt when I went to your room to apologize and found the bed empty and the window open? Then I couldn’t find you on the path or anywhere near the house. When Leigh told me you were with Mason…” He pounds his fist on the steering column. “How do you think it made me feel knowing you were at a different guy’s place other than mine, Rue?”

Unbelievable.

“You probably felt how I did when you brought Cassie over.”

“Pissed? Jealous? Hurt?”

“Yes,” I mutter.

He scoots the seat back and yanks me on his lap until I’m straddling his thighs. My chin is gripped between his fingers. Malice’s face is half in the moonlight and half in the darkness. He was so worried that he turned caveman on me, hauling me over his shoulder out of Mason’s place.

This big lug. My big, sexy guy. I trace one brow and then the other. He brings my hand to the side of his face. Malice winces. I hold his hand to the moonlight. He pounded on the metal door so hard.

I drop featherlight kisses along the skin. “Never hurt yourself for me.”

He shakes his head. “I searched the pathway. Went looking for you on the rooftop. I knew you were up there when Cassie was over. Nothing happened. It was stupid and insensitive of me to bring her over, but it turned out to be a good thing. She’s not in a good place right now, though she says she’s over what happened. But a person can’t get over something god-awful with a snap of their fingers.”

I wrap my arms around him. “We’ll figure everything out together. It’ll be okay.”

Malice strokes up and down my back. He cups my neck. Large, thick fingers splay over my skin. I shiver from the touch and not the cold, but Malice turns on the engine and the heat.

“You have so much hair, and I love it, Rue.” He slides his fingers in my hair and holds the weight of the strands in his hands. “I dig the color too. It’s so black that I have a clear view of your full red lips, one more top-heavy, and your expressive, gorgeous brown eyes.”

He strokes the pad of his thumb along the crest of my cheek. Malice’s gaze hangs on my mouth. I swallow.

“Can I kiss you?”

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