Page 22 of Defiant
“I’m not trying to get you drunk, I just didn’t know what you liked.”
“You don’t give a shit what I like.”
“Shut down the sarcasm, little wolf. You’re on thin ice right now.”
“You fucking locked me up!”
“Yeah. And you attacked me. You’re lucky you just got spanked. If you had any other kind of pussy, Matthew would be changing the carpet right now because little bits of your damn skull would be in it.”
Her eyes widen and she takes a step back. But it’s time she learns the fucking score. I’m the alpha. Elena’s the lowest ranking wolf in my pack. Without me, without the protection I’ll offer, she has nothing.
She needs to learn right here and now, that gratitude is the only attitude.
Her eyes flash with anger and tell me that she’s clearly not gonna become a sweet little flower.
I grab my whiskey and down a gulp. This is not how women act around me. Granted, I don’t lock most of them in my basement. But … still. I let her shower, alone. I gave her clothes. And considering how fucking hot she is, the fact that I let her get dressed is a huge sacrifice on my part … one that she clearly doesn’t recognize.
As I lower my cup, a raisin hits me square in the forehead and falls into my drink with aplop.
I narrow my eyes and turn to glare at Elena, who gives me a fake innocent look before grabbing her tray and stalking across the room. She picks the recliner farthest from me and sits down in it, putting her tray on her lap and picking up her sandwich, taking a big bite.
I watch her chew as I shake my head. She’s pissed at me and I get it. I’d be furious if I was in her shoes—and if there’s one thing I’ve learned through the years it’s that if you can’t stand in the heat of someone else’s fire, you aren’t meant to be a leader. Another thing I’ve learned … anger is one thing but disrespect is another. I don’t want her thinking she can get away with throwing things at me, even harmless little things like raisins.
She needs to learn a lesson. My eyes automatically travel over to the ping pong table and think about that lesson and I get half hard. But the punishment has to fit the crime and flicking a raisin isn’t nearly as bad as trying to attack me.
I reach into the glass bowl that Matthew filled with trail mix and grab an orange M&M. Elena’s about to learn who’s boss all over agai—
Another fucking raisin beans me in the forehead and my eyes snap up. Elena quickly lowers her head to look at her plate as if she’s never seen anything more fascinating than her sandwich in her entire life.
Fury and disbelief blast through me. Did she really just throw that from across the room? And hit her target? I shove down the grudging admiration that starts up in the pit of my belly. No.
I clutch my M&M and gauge the distance between us. It has to be thirty feet. When Elena reaches for her napkin, pretending she’s completely unaware of me, I let the M&M fly. It arcs up and smacks the ceiling, tumbling harmlessly down onto the carpet.
Motherfucker.
Elena’s eyes shine with disdainful amusement as she peers out from behind her napkin and I glare at her, turning back to my sandwich to regroup. I take a huge bite, wondering how the hell she got that raisin all the way across the room. I pretend not to look at her, practically daring her to try again—only so I can figure out her technique. Then I’m going to pelt her with so much dried fruit she could make a fruitcake.
Her thin hands travel across her tray and I feign interest in the dartboard. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch her fingers move and she balances a raisin between the tray and her fingertip, like a paper football. With her other hand, she flicks the raisin. I watch it sail in a straight line, heading right for me. At the last second, I duck to my left, but I can tell—beyond a doubt—that if I hadn’t moved, she would have hit me dead center again.
This time, I can’t quash that smidge of admiration. My girl has skills.
“Where the hell did you learn a useless trick like that?” I ask, attempting conversation to cover up the fact that I’m grabbing a huge handful of trail mix.
“My dad, not that you care,” she responds before returning to her sandwich, opening it up and pulling out a thin slice of steak, and eating it before licking her fingers.
“I care now that I know you aren’t a Dark Night,” I respond with a casual shrug before grabbing a slice of apple and eating it. “I just had to make sure first.”
She rolls her eyes. “Don’t believe you.”
That annoys me. In the future, there will be consequences for her rolling her eyes at me, but I force myself to inhale slowly and remember that it’s our first night together and this is new for her. I’ll let her have that one.
The raisin thing though—that’s just fucking unacceptable. When Elena digs through her sandwich, shoving aside onions to find more steak, I distract her with more conversation as I reach down and position a raisin.
“Why would your dad teach you something so useless?”
Her lips purse and she debates telling me but ultimately she relents and responds, “We used to go to baseball games a lot. I’d get bored. He taught me so I’d have something to do while he watched the games…” she trails off, a wistful look on her face that makes me want to cup her cheek. Why the hell do I want to do that?
“That’s kind of sweet,” I say, because that look on her face prompts me to say something.
