Page 47 of Jagged Line Paradise

“You should stay away from me, Avalon.”

Her olive-green eyes are filled with heat and bewilderment. Her delicate fingers touch her pink lips before she licks them and looks up at me. “What?” she asks, as though she didn’t hear me.

“I shouldn’t have followed you here. It was a mistake.”

“A mistake?” She pushes off from the edge of the counter where I had her pinned. “You’ve made a lot of mistakes, Andrés.” She rolls her eyes as she strides past.

I dig my fingernails into my palms to keep myself from grabbing her and shoving her against the wall.

Fuck, that flannel shirt she’s wearing.

It hardly comes down to mid-thigh and could fool me into thinking she’s got nothing on beneath.

Her cell phone rings and she moves a little quicker to the wooden desk where she left her bag. I take a solid breath as she digs through her purse, though she misses the call rifling through her mess of a bag. She starts typing out a text as I walk across the room toward her. I take off the hoodie I wore to protect my shirt from paint and put it back in the lost and found box, which is still sitting on the desk beside her bag.

She glances at me from beneath her lashes as I circle around her, moving to the cupboard at her back. She angles her phone away from me as I move—it’s so subtle, I might’ve missed it if I weren’t so intently tuned into her at this moment. But I’m aware, fully fucking aware of her every move.

I move slowly, opening the cupboard door to retrieve my jacket and tie, and I look over her shoulder as I do. I can see her screen clearly. She’s typing out a text that reads,“I can’t tonight, butI can do double this weekend if they’re free.”

The thing that really catches my attention is the name.

“Are you texting Robbie Mack?”

She startles at my voice, shoving her phone back inside her bag with haste like she’s been caught doing something wrong. And fuck, if that doesn’t make my cock twitch with sick lust to punish her for being bad.

“It’s none of your business.” She slings the bag across her body, over her shoulder, and marches toward the door. “I’m leaving.”

“Your shirt?”

“What?” She whips her hair around as she spins to look at me, then immediately glances down, realizing she forgot to remove her makeshift smock. “Shoot.”

I slip on my jacket as she drops her bag to the floor. She bypasses the buttons in favor of pulling it off over her head and I know right then how badly I want to fuck her. Ineedto fuck her.

She throws it in my general direction, and I catch it. “Shut off the light when you leave okay?Don’tfollow me. Call your camera guy to pick you up or something.”

“Fuck that. I’m walking you home.”

“Would you please just leave me alone? It hurts me to see you. Ithurtsme.”

I set my tie down on the desk instead of putting it on and cross the room to her. I’m surprised when she doesn’t move, surprised that she stayed, that she bothered to wait for my response at all. It tells me that if I want her, I can have her. If I want her, I can take her. The thought brings lust to my mind and with that dark kind of lust comes self-loathing.

I’m sure that’swhat my fucking father thought, too.

I’m just one bad thought away from losing control, yet still, I tempt fate.

“Come here,” I tell her.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, come here,”

“Why?No. Why?”

“Sunshine, come here.”

Her head drops, and she looks down at the floor. She lifts the heels of her hands and presses them to her forehead. “Don’t call me that. Please don’t call me that. I worked so hard to forget that nickname, the way you said it, the way it made me feel.” She starts to cry and a moment later, she’s on her knees, crying into her hands.

I can feel the force of her emotions. It swirls around her like a hurricane, blows across the space between us, and waves of her pain crash into me. It’s fucking intense, and sick as I am, I feed off it. Her weakness gives me strength.

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