Page 48 of Quiet Rage
“I don’t know,” I mutter, since she wants an answer I can’t put into words. “I was just worried.”
She ducks her head, but not in time to hide a little smile. “Okay. Well, I just came home to get changed for work. I was supposed to go in earlier, so I should hurry.” She starts up the walkway, keys in hand, but stutter steps when I trail behind her. Turning her head, she looks up at me. “What are you doing?”
“Going in with you.”
“But I told you I’m only getting changed for work.”
“I don’t mind watching you get changed.”
Slowly, she turns, looking at me like we’ve never met. “Why are you acting like this?”
“Like what?”
Her mouth works silently before she replies, “Like I’m your girlfriend or something. Looking around for me, asking all these questions about where I was and who I was with. Now you’re going to watch me get changed for work?”
Is that true? Am I treating her like a girlfriend? I wouldn’t know. The only experience I have with that is what I’ve watched my friends do.
I guess I am.
What’s more surprising is that I like it. I like having someone to look after. I even like worrying about her because it means I have someone to worry about. I don’t just want her body. I want all ofher. All the time. And it’s pretending I don’t that has me twisted up the way I am.
I’m still trying to piece together how I feel when a sad look comes over her face. “Kellen, I think it’s important you understand something before you get the wrong idea. I can’t be your girlfriend. After what you did to me? I just can’t. It wouldn’t be right.”
She touched a match to a powder keg. Wouldn’t be right? Who the fuck is she to decide what’s right and what’s not?
A whole parade of memories marches through my head, bouncing off my skull until it’s close to cracking open.
Hacking her accounts.
The hand job.
The closet. The blowjob after.
The wordwhorescrawled across her forehead. The lost, abandoned look in her eyes when I put my arm around Tiana.
She’s right. How is she supposed to ever feel anything for me but suspicion and distrust after the hell I made her life? She dropped out of school over it. What right do I have to be here now, to shove my way into her life?
But none of this is my fucking fault. I didn’t do it because I wanted to.Thisis what I want. That’s why I’m here. I want to be with her, even if it means having to ignore the wariness I see in her now.
I found something I want. Someone I want. It’s Dad’s fault I was never able to have more than this. I’ll be damned if I let him take her from me now.
“Let’s get this straight.” My voice is surprisingly calm and even. “You are whoever I say you are…and right now, you are going to pretend to be my girlfriend. If you can’t do it for real, you will fake it. Do you understand me?”
Chapter 22
Tamson
I stareat him in shock, my mouth literally hanging open. I just don’t understand.
“Why can’t you find someone else…anyone else?” My question only seems to irritate him further.
“Because I don’t want anyone else. I want you.” The determination in his voice is apparent, and I already know he is not going to take no for an answer.
The question is, can I really do it? Can I act like we’re a couple after everything he’s done to me? I just don’t know what he expects from me. When I don’t say anything in return, he sighs heavily, like he is frustrated with my apprehension. He looks away like he is searching for an answer that doesn’t exist.
His eyes snap back to mine. “If you do this, I’ll protect you from my father’s men. I won’t let them touch you again.”
I stifle a flinch at the reminder of Dante striking me in the face. I’m not going to lie, I’m terrified of him and the idea of having Kellen keep him away from me is a comforting thought, but it’s not only my safety I’m worried about.
