Page 58 of That One Night
“You don’t have to.” She finally stopped and he hit the brakes as she turned to look at him through the open passenger window. “You don’t have to do anything. I’m nothing to you, remember? You couldn’t even bring yourself to dance with me.”
“You’re behaving like a brat,” he told her.
She sighed. “I know. And I hate it.”
His mouth twitched again. “Then stop it.”
“I can’t.”
What kind of reply was that?“Why not?”
“Because if I stop, I’ll start overthinking. So if it’s all the same with you, I’ll be a brat and make you hate me and then maybe my life won’t be such a damn mess.” Her voice broke at the end of her words.
And he broke a little too.
Just as he opened his mouth to form a reply –any reply– that would make her stop looking like she was about to cry, she took an about turn and ran through a gap in the hedge along the road, into a field.
Damn, she was going to take a shortcut. The kind of shortcut his truck couldn’t follow her in. Yes, she was heading in the right direction for home, but she’d have to run through fields and jump a river to get there.
He was going to kill her. But first he was going to catch her. “For Christ’s sake,” he muttered, cutting the engine and wrenching the car door open, slamming it behind him as he ran toward the gap.
He could see her, ten yards ahead. Damn, that woman could run. But he could run faster. He knew it and she knew it.
“Emery, if you don’t stop running I’m gonna make you regret it,” he called out, thundering after her.
She didn’t stop, though. Didn’t even look back. Just kept running.
Adrenaline rushed through his body. The kind of adrenaline he knew he shouldn’t like. But it forced his muscles tighter, made his gait wider, made him faster than she could ever hope to run.
“Is this about the panties?” he yelled. “Frank’s the one who stole them. I just didn’t know what to do with them when I found them.” Okay, it was a half-truth. But she needed to stop storming away from him.
It took him less than thirty seconds to catch up with her. And no, he didn’t throw her over his shoulders, because yes, his body was full of testosterone right now, but his momma also brought him up to have some manners.
Instead, he ran in front of her, making her curse as he turned and reached for her arms.
“Let me go,” she told him breathlessly. Her chest was rising and falling like she wasn’t used to using this much energy all at once.
“I will if you stop running,” he told her. He was a little breathless, too, but it made his voice low and thick. Her eyelashes fluttered at the way he sounded.
“And if I don’t?” she murmured. He noticed she hadn’t pulled away from him. Not yet, anyway.
“Then I guess I’m running with you. All the way home.”
She blinked, like she wasn’t expecting that. Maybe she’d expected him to be a caveman, too.
Yeah, well he wasn’t the cliché she thought he was.
“Your truck is on the side of the road,” she pointed out.
“I’ll have to come back to get that afterward,” he told her. “And then I’ll be doubly pissed.”
Her jaw trembled, like she was trying not to laugh. “Or you could just let me go home alone. That could work.”
“Nope. It’s the truck or the marathon. Your choice.”
“Four miles isn’t exactly a marathon.”
“When was the last time you ran four miles, Emery?” he asked her.
