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“If you hadn’t found me?” I repeated, voice shrill. I abandoned the farce of my book and sat up turning to glare at him, not missing the way his eyes flickered to my thinly covered chest area. I also didn’t miss the way my traitorous body responded to the simple, fleeting and hungry look. But I had lines to deliver.
“If you hadn’t saved me, that’s what you mean,” I continued. “Because that’s your role, isn’t it, Duke? You’re the big man on his big horse with his big muscles that is here to save the bitchy, ungrateful and vapid movie star. The damsel is the only role I could possibly play so of course the hero is yours. But I’ve got some news for you, buddy. I’m not someone that collapses and gives up because of a fucking snake bite. I know that rattlesnake bites rarely kill people. I also know I’m strong enough to withstand a little venom in order to make it across a fucking field in order to save myself. I’ve done it plenty of times before.”
After delivering that—perfectly, I might add—I moved from the bed, careful not to flinch with the pain of standing.
Duke moved too.
Quicker than me, which wasn’t at all fair. I managed to get out of bed, but because it was rather ungraceful, Duke rounded the bed before I could move to my destination. He was standing in front of me—shirtless—and pissed off.
“Where do you think you’re goin’?” he demanded, eyes hard.
“I’m going to sleep on the chair,” I said, most of my bravado being lost with his closeness.
He tightened his jaw and leaned in even further, as if he knew he was torturing me. “You’re not sleepin’ in the fuckin’ chair.”
I tilted my chin upward in defiance. “You’re not telling me where I can fucking sleep.”
Of course, I expected to get another growled demand, because that was his way.
But instead of that, he lunged. Much like the snake did, but I’d been expecting the strike. This one? After today? Not so much.
That was why I didn’t struggle. That was why it was laughably easy for him to get me from my standing position to lying down on the bed with him all but caging me in.
“You can’t manhandle me onto a bed and expect me to sleep with you,” I protested, trying to move—to no avail. “That’s sexual assault.”
His grip tightened. “I can do it and I just fuckin’ did,” he said in my ear. My body shivered with the brush of his lips. He would’ve noted it. I hated that. “And you and I both know that anything sexual between us is gonna be as consensual as fuck. Beyond that, if we’re going to start talkin’ about pinning someone to the bed and label it as sexual assault, how about we mention what you did to me last night.”
I froze.
I thought that I’d managed to escape that situation because Duke was so deeply asleep this morning. But of course not. This was Duke, macho-man. He noted shit even in his goddamn sleep.
What was worse, was he was right. I’d done the same thing to him, without his permission.
“Just let me go, Duke,” I requested tightly, deciding not to comment on his last statement.
“Just go to sleep, Anastasia,” he murmured in my ear, softer this time, closer, but still pissed off.
I tried to move again, more for the statement it made than anything else. Because Duke was right—he wasn’t doing something I didn’t want. His arms around me, his lips at my ear, the heat of his body pressed against me—I wanted that. Too much. Which was the problem.
7
“Pack your bags.”
Delivering that line, Harriet entered without knocking. I jerked slightly from my position sitting in the armchair in front of the window pretending to read. I’d been on the same page for the last hour trying to figure out what the heck was going on with Duke and me.
Last night, somehow, I’d gone to sleep, with the throbbing in my leg, the discomfort in my soul, and Duke’s arms around me.
This morning was even more confusing.
I’d expected him to wait for me to go to sleep and then shove me over to my side of the bed. But no, I’d woken up in exactly the same position I’d been so sure I’d never fall asleep in. My back to Duke’s front, his arms around me.
When I’d woken up, I’d done my best to feign sleep so I could linger in the moment a while longer. I’d never woken up in the arms of a man, not even the man I’d been so sure was the love of my life. We’d have sex—he wouldn’t be overly concerned whether I’d climaxed or not—then I’d skulk out of his bed and find my own in the guest room. I told myself that it didn’t hurt, that Kieran was brilliant and he had curated a certain kind of life, I couldn’t expect him to change himself because of me. I was very good at lying to myself.
