His toes touched the floor, hands dropping from the bars. “Not only is your lunch bag neatly written with your address, that food container is also properly labeled with your name.”
“What’s wrong with that?” I challenged.
Xander shot me a wicked grin that heated up my blood in a totally different way. “From your head to your toes, you are as neat as a perfectly licked envelope. And I can see inside that envelope you shove all your feelings because you are so busy calculating them. Pain means feeling and you work very hard not to feel, don’t you?”
I stiffened. That blow landed as true as an axe splitting a log. “Are you calling me a robot?”
“If the tin heart fits, sweetheart,” he purred, stretching his arms up and grabbing the bars over his head. His arm muscles flexed. My stomach turned fluttery and weightless in response.
“Do you even know how to have fun?” The tip of his tongue touched his top lip in a lewd manner.
“Doyou?” I shot back at a loss for words. The way his satisfied grin deepened; I knew I’d said the exact wrong thing.
“Why don’t you open the door, come in here and I’ll show you.” He scanned me up and down with a look so hot my skin burned. The sudden twinkle in his tired eyes told me he was trying to get under my skin.
It took a minute to fully swallow.
“That’s right, sweetheart. Come in here and I’ll show you how to lose control.” He opened his arms in invitation. “I bet we could have some fun. I could split those pretty legs and lick up your yummy slit until you beg me to fuck you. We could go all night, until you have screamed my name so many times you’ve forgotten your own. I think that could befun.” Slowly, his hand slipped down the front of his pants. His fingers disappeared under the fabric, creeping toward an evident bulge growing in his loose slacks.
My throat turned as dry as a week-old scone, but I still managed to get out the words in my sternest tone. “Watch your language.”
Xander’s smile was half amusement, half disbelief. “What are you, my mother?”
His hand receded from his pants. Thank god, because it was inspiring far too many images in my head. Ones that made my heart beat faster and generated a liquid heat in my lower belly.
“Maybe that’s because Iama mother,” I shot back. “So I have no problem calling bullshit on someone when needed.”
Shock registered on his haggard face, brows climbing up his forehead. “You.Youare a mother. What are you nineteen?”
My cheeks grew hot. Was I flattered or insulted? Usually, I knew. “No.”
He looked at me with renewed interest. “You seemsoyoung.”
Okay, I was definitely insulted now. I knew I looked damn good, but people tried to underestimate me based on my looks, and youth was one of the many stigmas I had to prove myself against.
The fire gave me enough fuel to push away the strange mixture of arousal to volley back to outrage.
I touched my forehead with the tip of my finger. “Maybe you haven’t heard this because you’ve been a sad old man trapped in a cage, but black don’t crack honey. I’ll look this good until I’m ninety.” If I lived that long. Because this strange banter/fight was more dangerous than I was probably giving it credit.
Sure Miranda, scold a god. Pick a fight with him, this will end well.
A voice in my head assured me,we can take him.
At the very least, I should back away out of reach. All he’d have to do is thrust his arms through the bars and snap my neck, rip out my jugular, or. . .or other things he mentioned.
My thighs squeezed together.
Xander’s eyes took more of an interest in perusing me from top to bottom. “Black don’t crack,” he echoed in an amused voice. As if I’d given him a new idea he enjoyed playing with, like a cat batting at a ball of yarn.
His gaze flitted away before meeting mine again. “And what does your husband think of our arrangement?”
Something flashed in his eyes that I couldn’t identify. It could have been raw power, or maybe…jealousy?
No that’s ridiculous.
“My husband died years ago.” I said it as a point of fact, because it was. Jamal was still in diapers when Rashon died serving his country. It hurt. It hurt knowing we’d lost our future, but between both our deployments, Rashon and I never got to know each other on as deep a level as I would have liked. In fact, the pain that should have throbbed in my heart at the thought of him remained silent and still.
“Lucky him.” Xander’s words were laced with dark jealousy.
