Page 68 of Into the Blue
Her voice is soft. Much too calculated to not know what she’s doing in here. This was no accident. “I wasn’t snooping.”
“Could’ve fooled me. Why else would you be in here?”
“I was—looking for something.”
“Ya find it?” I snap, snatching the book from the table.How would she even know to look for this?“Want to tell me what the hell you were expectin’ to find in here?”
I could pretend that it was happenstance.
That her finding my ledger of all the weight we’re moving and through who was an accident.
That maybe, and by the looks of it, her getting the door unlocked and looking through my files on the laptop is also a fluke.
She could just be nosy.
However, all of those excuses I’m making, for my sanity’s sake, go out the window when she swallows hard, adjusting her stance to something firm and unmovable.
She raises her chin and it only goads the monster that she tried to coax out of me before.
She’sindignant?
She’sstanding on business?
She forgot who I was.
I’m gonna show her.
In a flash, the energy changes in the room as my anger rises. Racquelle is smart enough to ease her way from behind my desk, but I’m faster and larger.
Her back is against the wall before either of us can process what just happened.
Like a predator to prey, my instincts guided my actions.
My hand is around her throat and her eyes are wide in disbelief or fear.
I can’t tell.
I blink. “You think I deserve this?” Her mouth opens, but I squeeze a little tighter. “You think I deserve the knife you put in my back?”
“I think you don’t know what you have in your hands,” she throws back. “I know what kind of man does the business that you do. I know what kind of man makes men disappear when he lifts his hand.”
That silences me.
Not because she’s wrong, but because she knows.
Not everything, but enough to make me question what any of what she’s saying has to do with her presence in my office.
I move closer, my hips pressing into her and eliminating any semblance of space between us. Her pulse thrums under my hand, but now there’s anger blazing in her eyes. “You got a lot of nerve goin’ through my books for someone whoneeds meto protect them.”
“I didn’t ask to need you,” she bites back. “It just ended up that way.”
“No, you didn’t,” I say, and I’m close enough now that I can smell her hair products and whatever infuriating scent that is all her. “But you let me take care of you anyway.”
Her breath catches when she feels me hard against her stomach.
Even when she’s betrayed my trust—I want her. And if that isn’t fucked up, I don’t know what is.
“Why?” I ask, voice quieter. “Why come here?”
