Page 75 of Irresistible Rogue

“It is. That doesn’t mean they need to know about it. Doing shit behind their backs that I know would piss them off is just as much fun.” He smiled, a dark, shit-disturber smile that didn’t even reach his eyes.

“You are seriously gross.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

I studied him, wondering if I truly trusted him enough to do this. I must have, or why would I be here? I really wasn’t that drunk or anything. I knew what I was doing.

I watched him move in a slow circle all the way around the bed, around me, like a wolf sizing up its prey. I tried to keep my eyes on him the whole time. I couldn’t quite. When he disappeared behind me, into the shadows, I couldn’t really see his face and I didn’t like it.

“What are you doing?”

“Circling.”

“Why?”

“I don’t like sitting still.”

“You’re trying to make me nervous.”

“Are you nervous?”

I looked at him as he circled in front of me, but he didn’t stop. He looked menacing, somehow, even though he looked relaxed.

Maybe this was how he looked before a fight. Before he attacked an opponent.

The thought made me shiver.

He’s not stalking you. You’re not prey.

Just relax.

I knew he wasn’t really evil or anything. That was just shit I told myself when I was mad and humiliated. If he was evil, Mom would’ve said something. She would’ve warned me to stay away from him, Jacob’s son or not. So would my aunts. They’d never said anything negative about Shane. They didn’t gossip about him behind his back.

It was my cousins who did those things.

They were the ones who told me he was an amateur MMA fighter. Mom never talked about that or what he was into—other than all the arm candy—or what he did for a living at all.

“So why would you tell me that stuff at all?” I asked him. “You really thought I’d want to screw you to hurt my mom or something?”

He didn’t answer that for several slow paces, around into the shadows behind his bed.

“Did it ever occur to you, little Jolie, that I said that stuff for you?”

“For me?”

“Figured you might like that it’s… forbidden.”

I swallowed as he circled around in front of me again. It was making me dizzy, trying to keep track of his movements in the shadows. “Why would I like that?”

“I don’t know. You like bad boys, don’t you?”

“Where would you get that from?”

“How about from Hunter, the guy you met in a bar one night.” He paused in front of me. “He seemed to get the idea that you liked bad boys. What was it… athletes and male prostitutes…?”

“I never wanted you to be a prostitute,” I protested. “We were just flirting.”

“We were. It was fun.”

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