Page 27 of Play Your Part

“We started dating six months after we met.”

He whistled. “He must have had quite a thing for you, waiting that long.”

“Not everyone plows their way through local restaurants.”

Alexei barked out a laugh. “You think you know me.”

“I know your type.”

“My type?” Alexei repeated.

“You like people being in awe of you. I saw your face when that woman stumbled over her words. You thrive on it.”

Alexei gestured around the restaurant with one hand. “Don’t try to pretend you don’t love the attention.”

“I hate the attention.”

“So what… you were with Ward for his dazzling personality?”

“His huge penis, actually.”

Alexei spat his drink back into his glass. Catching him off guard like that brought me sick satisfaction.

“Just because the women you date only want you for attention doesn’t mean I’m like that.”

Alexei’s face fell but only for a moment. I looked away, not wanting to see the hurt, and pretended to search for something around the bar again. I clocked our waitress huddled with several colleagues, no doubt retelling the story of perfect Volk and the terrible shrew he deigned to date. Alexei belonged to the Wolves fan base now; even if they considered him an asshole, he wastheirasshole.

That stupid curious stare of his immediately met my gaze when I turned back. “What?” I snapped.

“I was wondering whether Ward started dating you because of this attitude or whether you developed it because he rubbed off on you.”

“Excuse me?”

Alexei barreled on as if I hadn’t said a word. “You’re acting just like him. Too good to give me the time of day. Thinking you’re so much better than everyone around you. When you told me you were dating him—”

“I didn’t tell you anything,” I muttered.

“—I didn’t get it. His grouchy, overbearing ass and you?” He paused, likely expecting me to steamroll him, but his words had stunned me silent. “But I get it now.”

“I hate you,” I said, staring daggers in his direction. I felt so called out, dissected by someone who didn’t know me, and who was arrogant, presuming he did.

Alexei barked out another laugh, and that’s when I noticed he hadtwofreaking dimples, one in each cheek. Good lord. Someone please make this stop.

“Same maturity level as him too.”

“Screw you.”

“You sounded like you were planning to,” he replied, one side of his lips tugging up. “First date is a little early for me, if I’m being honest.”

Anger was never a comfortable emotion. I hated the unpredictability of it. Sometimes it slowly took over my body at the speed of an object falling through quicksand; other times, like now, it shot through me like a heat-seeking missile. I never knew how to process it, only how to spit it out at someone as quickly as possible to purge it from my body.

“You will have me in your fucking dreams,” I said in a low voice, not wanting to cause a scene. My hands shook beneath the table where they sat in my lap. “And nowhere else. Not now, not ever.”

“Do you want to bet?”

My pulse hummed faster, adrenaline coursing through me. “That I won’t sleep with you? It’s a losing proposition, buddy. And deeply stupid, because you’re giving me a bigger incentive not to. Trust me, the odds were already stacked against you.”

He leaned forward, elbows resting on the table. “I never back down. Maybe you missed that when you were sticking your nose up at hockey.”

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