Page 19 of Target Me
It occurred to me that I had no reason to stand there and wait for him to finish his call. Taking advantage of his distraction, I waved and strode off toward my car.
Turning into the aisle that held my car, I noticed a hulking body relaxing over my beautiful yellow paint job.
“I swear to God, if you chipped my paint…” The rest of my sentence was muffled by t-shirt as I was pulled into a fierce, unexpected hug.
“What the fuck were you thinking, hen?” he asked, pulling back and looking me over.
“I was thinking you’re an asshole, and I needed some space.”
“You don’t get space while there’s a threat out there against you. Pull that kind of shit again and I’ll put you over my knee and spank you.”
I ignored the flare of heat that shivered through me. I was angry at this guy. How dare he order me around after what he’d said and done over the last twenty-four hours?
“You think that’ll tame this brat?” I spat the word at him, wanting him to know that he’d hurt me. “Joke’s on you. I’m into that shit.”
No, damn it. I wasn’t supposed to say that last part.
Instead of revoking what had been aired, I flounced to the driver’s side door and slipped into my car. Logan caught my door before I could close it, leaning in over me until he was all I could see. Shit, he smelled good.
“Go straight home,” he growled. “I’ll be right behind you.” He slammed my door and stormed away, taking all the oxygen in my car with him.
With a shaking hand, I turned on the ignition and drove home, feeling like wolves were biting at my heels. As soon as I stepped out of my car in the front drive, Logan was there, hand extended.
“You can’t be trusted with your keys. I’m keeping them from now on.”
“Fuck you.”
He sighed, squeezing the bridge of his nose as though his head hurt.
“Avery, please. Just cooperate for once in your life. I’m trying to keep you safe.”
“It seems a lot more like you’re trying to control me. You know, keep me in line so I’m not an embarrassment to my father? God, is it dark with your head shoved that far up his ass?” I shouldered past him and stormed into the house.
The day was warm, and as soon as I began peeling my workout clothes from my body, I realized exactly how I wanted to spend the afternoon. If it happened to be a painful experience for Mr. Bossy-as-Fuck, all the better.
Wrapping my robe around my shoulders, I wandered downstairs and around the side of the house to the pool area. It may have been invisible from the back doors, but I knew exactly where he’d put his cameras, so he was about to get a show. Loosening the tie around my waist, I stepped up to the pool’s edge and let the fabric slip from my shoulders, staring into the lens of the nearest camera as I stepped naked into the water.
I ducked under the surface, reveling in the way the currents brushed against my bare skin. I’d always wanted to swim naked but had never felt safe enough to try. I hated that I felt safe with Logan, despite what he’d said, but I was going to show him exactly how bratty I could be if he kept up his pompous shit.
Up and back, up and back, I swam leisurely laps until the call of the sun was too strong. Without bothering to retrieve my robe, I lay facedown on the nearest lounger, absorbing the sun’s rays as I practiced a meditation that felt easier now that I’d tired my body out.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
I hadn’t expected him to have the balls to show his face so soon.
“Warming my cold, bratty blood,” I murmured without bothering to crack an eyelid.
The slap of his feet retreated, and I almost breathed a sigh of relief, but then they returned, and my lounger tipped as he added his weight to the edge of it.
“You’ll burn if you don’t put sunblock on.”
A cold streak hit my back, and then large hands followed, rubbing the silky substance into my naked skin. His strong fingers worked over my shoulders and down my arms in circles before sweeping over my ribcage, barely tickling the sides of my breasts where they pressed into the cushion beneath me.
The sound of more sunblock squirting into his hand was followed by a swipe over my lower back and a slight hesitation before his touch traveled over the globes of my ass and down each leg. His fingertips brushed dangerously close to my core, and I prayed he couldn’t see how much he was affecting my body. No matter what conscious decisions I had made about this man, it was glaringly obvious my body wanted what he was offering. Or not offering, as the case may be. When he’d covered every inch of the back of me, I rolled, exposing my front to him in a way I swore to myself wasn’t an invitation.
My nipples peaked from the brush of a cool breeze, so at odds with the heated cognac stare of the man looming over me.
“You’re playing a dangerous game here, hen,” he rumbled, sweeping his gaze over my body, drinking me in as though savoring me like a fine wine.
