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“Don’t know. Don’t know you. I just know I don’t want anyone near my girl while they’re in the mood you’re in right now. Simple as that.”
“Your girl? What does that mean? The fling’s back on, is it?” Dieter asked, a sour note to his voice.
“I didn’t say that.”
His face flushing, Dieter glared at Havana. “Wait, you’re dating this guy?” He asked it in the same tone someone would ask if she held satanic rituals in her basement. “For God’s sake, he’s your landlord. What, you want to lose your home? He’ll evict you if it doesn’t work out in the long-run. And it won’t. From what I’ve heard about him, he’s only interested in shallow relationships.”
“That bite mark on her neck says different,” said Bailey.
Dieter went utterly still. His eyes dropped to Havana’s neck and darkened. “You let him mark you?” he asked, his tone so even she could almost miss the anger there.
Havana sighed. She’d never allowed Dieter to leave brands on her because she’d known they wouldn’t have meant anything to him—they wouldn’t have been marks of possession, they’d merely have been wounds he left in the heat of the moment.
Dieter shook his head. “I don’t get any of this. You don’t do commitment any more than he does.”
She felt her head jerk back. “Where’d you get that idea?”
“In all the time I’ve known you, you’ve never been in a relationship. You like to keep things casual.” He gestured from her to him. “Case in point.”
“I don’t have some kind of phobia of commitment. It just took me a while to find someone I wanted to commit to.” Which had originally been Dieter, but she didn’t say that. “Which is exactly what happened with you. Meeting Tabitha changed things and made you want more.”
Dieter snapped his mouth shut. “And meeting this guy changed things for you, did it? Did you stop to wonder if meeting you changed anything for him? Because I don’t buy that it did, or he’d have offered you ‘more’ straight off. He didn’t. And did the fling progress to more? No. It ended. Then he comes back on the scene, and you two are dating. Sounds to me like he doesn’t really know what he wants.”
“Right, you’re done here,” declared Tate, officially through with this asshole. Just looking at him, knowing Havana once cared for the man, was hard as fuck. Hearing Dieter badmouth him and try to make her doubt his commitment to her … it was tempting to sucker punch the piece of shit. His cat was all for it.
Dieter scowled. “Well, this isn’t your home, so you don’t get to tell me when I’m done here. Butt the fuck out.”
“Dieter,” groaned Bailey. “Don’t be stupid. He could probably kill you with his thumb alone.”
Havana raised her hands. “All right, let’s move on from this, shall we? Dieter, I appreciate you coming to check on me. I really am fine. Thanks for stopping by.”
His spine stiffened. “You want me to go? You’re kicking me out?”
“I’m trying to prevent this situation from escalating,” she said. “If you can calm down, you’re welcome to stay. If you can’t, you need to go and come back when you are calmer.”
Dieter’s eyes blazed. “For fuck’s sake, Havana, how do you expect me to be calm when you almost died?”
A growl vibrated Tate’s chest. “Didn’t I warn you to watch your tone?”
Dieter’s eyes flickered, but then his expression morphed into a cold glare. “How I talk to my friend is not your goddamn business.”
Tate stepped right into his personal space. “Wrong,” he said, his voice low and deep. “Havana’s my business. How people treat her is my business. And from what I can see, you’re not that good of a friend.”
“Now, hang on a—”
“All you’ve done since you walked in here is bitch at her for one thing or another. You talk to her like she owes you explanations, and then you act like a dick when you don’t like what you hear. You’re all about how you feel, not how she feels. So right now, I’m not liking you. Which means I’m not liking that you’re anywhere near my mate.”
All the bluster drained from Dieter in a rush. “What?”
“You heard me.”
The eagle’s gaze bounced from Tate to Havana. “You’re not bonded.”
“We will be.”
Dieter looked at Havana, his face slack. “He’s your mate?”
Tate didn’t look away from the eagle, but he heard her reply, “Yes, I was hoping you’d be happy for me.”
Dieter closed his eyes, but not in time to stop Tate from seeing the flash of pain in them. When those eyes opened again, they were blank.
“Just a few minutes ago,” Tate began, “she gave you a choice—calm down or leave. Make that choice, or I’ll make it for you. And I think you get that I’ll have no issue with throwing your ass out of this apartment. Something tells me I might even enjoy it.”
