Page 27 of Promise of Destruction
Unfortunately, he’s fishing with dynamite, and I’m the last fish in the pond.
The door of the conference room opening causes me to jump, my heart relocating to my chest, but Declan doesn’t walk out. He lets the door shut behind him, waits a beat, and then opens it wide, inserting his body there and extending an arm as if he means to show Quinton out of their private meeting.
There’s an awkward moment where Quinton crosses his arms and stamps his foot like a child, and then he blows by Declan with all the finesse of a pissed-off elephant. He checks Declan’s shoulder on the way out, and I suck in a gasp, certain that Declan will snatch him up by the collar of his obnoxious, hot-pink polo and choke the life out of him. But Declan doesn’t react as Quinton stalks toward the door, avoiding my eyes, his face as red as a beet.
“Quinton.” I find my voice when his hand is on the doorknob, entreating him to explain what’s got him so upset.
But when he turns to face me, all empathy I could have shared with him is gone.
“Fuck off, cunt.”
nineteen
Declan
Quintonwilllivelongenough to regret calling her a cunt. I promise myself as much the minute the word is out of his mouth.
I want to go after him and pin him to the wall by his collar. I want to punch him in his conventionally attractive face, to kick him to the ground and bash his face in until the tongue he just used to insult my girl is coated in blood and he chokes on it.
If Soren wasn’t here, I’d probably do all those things. But I won’t lose my composure like that in front of her. I want to scare her, not traumatize her.
Witnessing manslaughter may be a line she’s drawn in the sand. Who’s to say?
“Rude.” She mutters, and the tone of her voice is so affronted, I actually have to laugh.
Here I am, ready to tear his tongue out through the back of his skull because he had the audacity to demean her, and she simply huffs in surprised indignation.
It’s kind of cute.
“What?” Soren asks, her eyes narrowed on me in suspicion as I shake my head.
“You really are sheltered, huh, little bird?”
That prompts a scowl, and it’s so fucking divine I have to dig my nails into the tender flesh of my palms so that I don’t grab her by the neck and pin her to the wall just to taste her disapproval.
“I’m not a bird.” She squeaks. Her voice comes out strained through her irritation, small with fear of fighting against me and her frustration with me. I think the irony is lost on her, because when my smirk deepens, she jumps out of her chair and plants her hands on her hips. “And I’m not sheltered.”
“Oh?” I tease, enjoying the rouge on her cheeks and how it deepens when I refuse to relent. “Then what are you? A whore who’s enticed by the fight? Are you a secret slut under the cover of an unassuming reporter?”
“I’m not a whore!” Her objections fall on deaf ears. I don’t care who she’s been with before. She could have fucked her way through the phone book and it wouldn’t change anything. I’ll be the last man to ever touch her.
Honestly, part of me hopes she is a little bit of a secret whore. She’d need to be to withstand the things I’m going to do to her. An even larger part of me hopes sheisn’t, because it will be all the easier to destroy her the way I vowed I would.
“Then what are you?” I insist. “Women are always one or the other, in my experience.”
She stares at me a moment before blinking. Her long lashes flutter over her eyes and she opens them slowly to resume staring at me.
“You’reliterallya walking red flag.”
Her assessment of me is a bit hasty, but it’s not wrong.
I chuckle at her conclusion and take a step toward her, eliminating the space between us. “I may be a red flag, but don’tdeny you want me to tie you up with it and fuck your sweet cunt like the whore you pretend you aren’t.”
She opens her mouth to suck in a ragged breath, and maybe to object. But no words come. Instead, her lips move like they’re trying to form something before she abandons that and presses them together.
“You can’t even deny it.” I tell her, satisfied that my words have quelled hers. It’s so much easier to imagine taking her lip between my teeth when it isn’t moving. “If you didn’t, you’d already be gone.” I tell her, lifting a strand of hair off her shoulder. My touch grazes her collar bone.
Soren fails to suppress a shudder or bite back the sound that comes from her mouth. I take advantage of her staying still to rub the lock of hair between my fingers, luxuriating in the silky feel of it on my skin.
