Page 43 of Heart Sick Hate

Echo’s gaze flits in my direction for a fraction of a second, and the apples of her cheeks are rosy. She’s flushed from what I did to her in the bathroom, and I fucking love it.

“You look a little tense.” I lean in, and even if she avoids my gaze, she draws her bottom lip between her teeth at my closeness. “Anything I can do to help you relieve a little tension?”

Golden eyes land on me. Hate that turns my insides liquid. I’d like to bathe in her fury and watch her disappointment when it doesn’t destroy me.

“I don’t need anything from you, Crew.”

“Still pretending.” I smirk, waving a hand up at the bartender. “Whiskey sour.”

He nods, passing a glance at Echo before walking away to make my drink. I’m tempted to use the spoon sitting behind the bar to carve his eyes out for looking at her. Possessive isn’t something I’m used to feeling over a girl, but this one, who doesn’t even belong to me, draws out every bit of my need to have her all to myself.

Especially now that I know my brother’s never touched her—no one has.

Even if I assumed they weren’t intimate by the way she flinched every time Rhett wrapped his arm around her, the confirmation makes me want to claim her like he never has. She’ll feel me in the deepest pits of her soul. I’ll carve my name inside her until there’s no denying who she belongs to.

The bartender slides my drink across the bar, and I release the purity ring I’m clenching in my fist, draining half of it in one swallow. It burns my throat as Echo’s eyes sear me.

Maren disappears to the dance floor with her boy toy, but Echo doesn’t follow her.

Magnetism.

She can lie to herself all she wants, she’s in my orbit now that I’m here.

“Speaking of tense.” Echo narrows her gaze. “What’s your deal?”

“My deal?”

“Do you plan on toying with me for your amusement forever? Or are you going to move on to your next victim soon?”

I smirk, finishing my drink before the truth comes out, and she tries to see through it. Setting my glass down on the bar, I spin around the splash that’s left.

“Is that how you see yourself, Echo? Are you the victim in this story?” I push my glass aside and turn my body to fully face her, widening my knees so I can grab the front of her stool and pull her between my legs.

No flinch, no disgust. If anything, her lips part with a hint of excitement her glare can’t bury as I force her closer.

“I’m not the victim.”

“Are you sure about that?” I probably shouldn’t like pushing her like I do, but it’s basically foreplay at this point, and I love when she gets all fired up. “After all, you’re still playing their game. Dating the holy son andpretending you want all that shit, when we both know you don’t.”

“You don’t know what I want.”

I lean back in my chair and look her over. “I know you still want me to fuck you, even if I turned you down last night.”

Her glare sears me as her golden eyes narrow. “I’m not dwelling on it. If anything, you gave me a gift. It was a mistake going there.”

“Was it?”

She wants to believe she was running on adrenaline and poor judgment. We both know it’s a lie.

“Tell me the truth, Echo.” I lean in. “Why are you still a virgin?”

“Why does it matter?”

“Because it doesn’t make sense.”

She pulls her blonde and black hair into a loose bun on the top of her head and secures it with one of the hair ties she has around her wrist. “I’m not the only virgin in the world, Crew. What’s so confusing about it?”

“You’re fucking hot.”

---