Page 30 of Good Girl
Rude little prick.
He turns when Poppy makes a delicious moan and drops to the floor on her knees … where I like her. Such a good girl.
When I flick my thumb over the remote control in my pocket, she gasps and pushes her hand between her legs. So needy, so hungry, so ours.
“We just came to pick up our Angel.” I slap a hand on Josh’s shoulder as Tristan barges past him, almost knocking him off his feet.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Josh raises his voice in alarm.
“I just told you,” I snarl. Fucking idiot doesn’t listen.
His hair swings back-and-forth across his forehead as his head swivels between me, Tristan and Poppy, watching us like a tennis match.
Tristan scoops our girl up, and I lower the vibrations, smirking at my Angel, fighting to catch her breath as she trembles, linking her arms around Tristan’s neck.
“Wait… Aren’t you, Tristan Carter?” Josh asks, narrowing his eyes. “Poppy’s boss?” He barks out a weird laugh, shaking his head. “She’s fucking her boss.”
Tristan ignores him, moving past him and down the corridor. When Josh steps forward, I press a palm against his chest, shoving him backwards against the door, where he lets out a littleoomphin surprise.
“Someone had to fuck her.” I sneer in his face, towering over his short frame. “You sure as shit couldn’t handle the job.”
“She’ll come back to me with her tail between her legs. I’m all she’s ever known.”
I think he honestly believes that crap, that if he made her question herself, doubt her own power, her beauty, that he could keep her in the little box he created in his head for her, occasionally taking her out to parade her around his parents and have his cake behind closed doors. What a waste of both their lives. “Youwerethe only man she’d known. Now that we’ve opened her eyes to new horizons, she’s never coming back here, to the bleak existence you tried to force her to live in.”
“Both of you?” he says on a whisper of disbelief, doubt flickering in his brown eyes. “She’s with both of you?”
I hitch up a shoulder. “She has an open mind and an insatiable hunger.”
“She’s a whore.” As soon as the insult leaves him my hand surges from his chest to his throat, the pulse there thundering like a jack rabbit beneath my tightening squeeze. Pathetic hands claw at mine in an attempt to release my hold. Not likely. Browneyes bulge, mouth becoming a lovely blue hue, and just when his eyes flicker closed, I jerk my hand back, and he slumps to the floor.
“Watch your mouth,” I snap as I step over him to leave.
When I return to the town car we hired so we could circle the building without having to park, the chauffeur opens the back door for me. I fold my frame inside to find Poppy still cradled against Tristan, delicate little weeps rattling her body.
“Angel?” Every muscle in my body is coiled tight at the sight of her sadness. I want to go back upstairs and finish cutting off that fuckers air supply.
Lifting her head, she swipes a hand at her tears and sniffles, shifting her butt until she’s sitting straighter on Tristan’s lap. “I will break every bone in his face, Poppy.” Tristan fumes, and she giggles, hiccupping.
“He doesn’t deserve the wasted energy.” She strokes her palm down his face. “But thank you.” She looks at me and smiles. “Can we go home now?” Tristan visibly relaxes at her words, and I nod, rapping my knuckles on the privacy divider to signal the driver.
We begin moving, joining the traffic, and the farther away we get from her ex, the more easily she seems to be able to breathe.
By the time we reach our apartment, Poppy has reeled off a play-by-play of her entire interaction with Josh. It’s part of what I find so endearing about her–she’s an open book, no bullshit, just truth. I want to break the little runt’s neck for what he said to her, but she’s gone from anger and sadness to feeling amused by him.
“I pity him, really.” She tilts a shoulder up.
“Are you not worried about him telling your parents about us?” She ponders my question as we enter the lobby of our apartment building, Tristan picking up a shit-ton of deliveries,shoving a box into my arms before taking the elevator up to our floor.
“I hope he does.” She finally answers when the elevator doors open. She sashays past me as Tristan slides our key in the door, juggling the bags as he does. “My mother could use the shock of learning that men like you exist in real life too.”
“Men like us?” I shift the box I’m carrying, the question dying on my tongue when she steps inside the apartment and gasps. Tristan grins over his shoulder at me as we enter behind her.
Lights. Christmas twinkling lights everywhere. The whole apartment is lit up like the night sky. My chest aches as I move farther inside, slipping the box onto the table before turning to Tristan. He’s never once had any form of decoration in all the years I’ve known him. It’s always been a hard no for him. Looking at his face now… It’s stunning. The joy he’s feeling at witnessing her happiness radiates from him. She’s healing parts of him that no one else has been able to touch. With emotion clogging in my throat, I clench my jaw and turn to watch Poppy.
“Oh my god.” She gazes around in wonder, twirling to take it all in. “It’s beautiful.”
“You’re beautiful,” he tells her, dumping the bags so he can rip open the box I deposited. He pulls out reels of tinsel garlands then throws them up in the air like confetti.
