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Sean moves into sight, watching Chase carefully. A lion shifter, he’s capable of taking down an ordinary wolf, but Chase doesn’t have the animal, or the good sense, to realise that. Instead, he has the unpredictable temperament of a young alpha shifter on steroids.
This is a disaster waiting to happen.
“I’m speed-dating. And you’re in Elliott’s chair.”
Narrowing my eyes at Chase, I try to convey exactly how much I dislike him in one glare. Fuck apologising. I can’t believe the nerve of him, barging in here and scaring away my date. Elliott is not my type, but he’s perfectly lovely and didn’t deserve to be growled at like that.
Chase stares back unblinking, not saying a word, but the tick in his jaw and the veins bulging in his neck says more than words ever could. This is a man on the edge. I shake my head and Sean moves back, no doubt to call Marcus. Fuck.
Billy moves on the far side of the room, and I pin him with a don’t you dare look.
“First, you lock me in a fucking shed for hours on end, and when I come to talk to you about it, this is what I find you doing!” Whisper shouting, he looks around, practically snarling at any man he sees looking in this direction. “What the fuck, Natalie?”
His tone is incredulous as he leans forward and plants the palms of his hands firmly on the table in front of him. It doesn’t sound bad, and I can see the accusatory looks I’m getting from the other women in the room. I can only imagine what they think is going on right now.
“You hate me, and you’re stalking me just to torment me. You had it coming.” Shrugging, I’m aware I sound like a petulant teenager, but he’s driven me to this. “And I’m single. What am I supposed to be doing? Sitting at home waiting for you to come peeping in my windows again?”
The crowd gasps, and Chase’s face turns so red with anger he’s almost purple. As his aura strengthens and morphs into something dangerous, I’m not backing down. Billy’s eyes go as round as saucers as I stand and stare angrily down at Chase across the table. Everyone in the room inches away, trying to get further back without drawing any attention to themselves.
“I don’t hate you,” he growls. “It would be way fucking easier if I did.”
Not sure what to say to that, I straighten, folding my arms over my chest stubbornly.
“I went to the barbeque to find you, I was going to apologise,” he explains through gritted teeth.
“Then do it quickly, and let me get back to my date.”
His expression is somewhere between genuinely confused and incandescent with rage.
“Chase, saying you were going to apologise is not the same as actually apologising.”
His fingers grip the edge of the table as he fights to regain control. “I’m your date now.” Chase’s tone is deadly serious and there’s a challenge in his eyes. Like he’s daring me to take him up on his offer.
“I don’t want you to be my date,” I huff, pretending his intense attention isn’t making me hot and flustered.
“Seems like you would have been pretty happy if I was your date the other night.”
Oh, he did not go there. Fuck him.
“Well, you snooze, you lose.” Giving him a cold assessing once over, I add. “I think my dream was better than the reality, anyhow.”
Not true. Not true at all. Chase's actual lips on my skin would feel a million times more amazing than anything I could ever imagine. His fingers grip the back of his chair so hard I’m worried it’s going to crack.
“And you’re not really dating material.”
His eyes narrow further. Why can I not shut up?
“Oh, really?” His voice is deceptively calm. Face heating and my traitorous pussy getting wet at the reminder of just how good it felt to have him pressed against me, I can’t bring myself to lie, so I stare mutinously back at him. “And Elliott is? Or…” Chase snatches the piece of paper in front of me from the table and reads it through gritted teeth. “Simon. Simon’s dating material, is he?”
A few seats down, Simon, who had been delighted when I added his name earlier now looks like he wishes he never met me.
“Yes, because you, Chase Walker, are bossy, rude, and angry all the damn time. When I haven’t done anything to you!”
The bell sounds but nobody moves, stunned into silence by the show we’re putting on.
“Can you get up?" I point to the next guy, reading his badge, “You need to move down the line, it’s John's turn.”
John shakes his head furiously, holding his hands up in front of him when Chase growls in his direction. John also wants nothing to do with me. Great. Suddenly feeling hot and flustered, I need to get away.
