Page 6 of Weston’s Treasure

Damn right, I was.

It was also my biggest problem. I blamed it on my mother. It was because of her incessant belittling I was hell-bent on proving my worth. Her constant nagging had made me hard-headed, always out to do the opposite of what she’d told me. She hated my dad, hated that I loved him, hated that I wanted to be like him, hated that I loved the water. Basically, she hated everything about me and told me so.

But more than all of that, it was because of her, my self-esteem was shit and I over-compensated by setting out to do things that would show her I was more than who she’d said I’d turn out to be.

Only right now, the one thing I was trying to do was protect myself against a man who had saved my life, was continuing to try to protect me, even if he was doing it the only way a jerk knew how and that was to be a bossy, condescending prick.

So I was grateful I was so obstinate. A weaker woman would’ve caved under the intensity of his stare, she would’ve allowed her gratitude to outweigh her sensibility. But lucky for me, my hard head was screwed on tight and I wouldn’t budge no matter how tingly I got.

And damn if every nerve ending in my body was rapid firing just from the look in his eyes.

Down, girl. Stay strong.

3

Weston had been wrong. Silver couldn’t write a book—she could fill a motherfucking library to the brim.

Never in his life had he met a woman who had no idea when it was time to stop with the pig-headed bullshit and admit she was in trouble. And what the hell was it about her eyes that shone the truth, yet her mouth ran away like a train headed straight for Bullshitville, but she couldn’t stop the derailment.

Weston knew she understood she was in trouble, he saw it the moment it happened, when his words had finally penetrated her thick skull and it had settled over her that she’d been targeted—that the drug dealers knew she was the one to give up the Dora B.

Yet Silver continued to be combative.

He was seriously considering handcuffing her in his bedroom so she couldn’t go out and find more trouble when he remembered she’d been cuffed earlier.

“How’d you get out of the cuffs?” he inquired.

“Picked the lock,” she said proudly.

Weston was almost impressed until her smile turned smug and he was reminded she was exasperating.

“Picked it, with what?”

“With a bobby pin.”

It wasn’t difficult to pick handcuffs—one of the reasons the team preferred zip ties with securing a prisoner. But it wasn’t necessarily easy either. It would be something she would’ve known how to do or she wouldn’t have figured it out so quickly, and she’d had herself uncuffed and hiding before Weston had entered the room.

“You got random cuffs laying around at home to practice with?”

Weston’s back shot straight at Chasin’s bad attempt at flirting with Silver.

“Bet you’d like to know,” she sassed.

“Damn right, I would,” Chasin continued, and ire turned into jealousy, which only further pissed Weston off.

He didn’t get jealous, never had looked at anyone—male or female—with envy of any sort. Yet there he was, standing in front of Silver jealous as fuck that his friend was playing with a woman who he had no interest in. Yet he was resentful of the easy banter.

It was time to move on before Weston did something regretful, like tell his friend to back the hell up and stop talking to Silver like she was some chick he was trying to pick up. And if that’s what Chasin was trying to do, Weston would shut that shit down.

He didn’t want her, but he didn’t want any of his friends hooking up with her either. He told himself it was because he didn’t like her, therefore he didn’t want her around, but Weston knew that was a lie.

“Before you boarded the Dora B was anyone acting funny?” Weston asked, in an effort to move the conversation away from Chasin.

Without missing a beat, Chasin chuckled, catching on immediately that Weston didn’t like the banter.

“What do you mean?” Silver asked.

Gone was the playful tone she’d used with his teammate and back was the bitchy snarl. And Weston couldn’t help thinking there was something seriously wrong with his head and his dick. The more spiteful Silver was the more turned-on he became. He wanted to blame it on his recent dry spell, but he knew that was bullshit. He’d gone longer without sex and had still had full control over his dick. But not now. Not when Silver had a scowl on her face and fire in her belly.