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"You’re impossible," she cries. If she’d been standing, bet she’d have stamped her little foot.
"You’re too easy to tease."
"Were you teasing me?" She snarls.
So cute.
"Not really." A chuckle rolls up my throat and I swallow it down. Bet if I showed her just how amused I am right now, she wouldn’t be very happy about it. For that matter, nothing I’ve done so far has made her happy. Not that I have tried to make her happy or shit like that. Hell, she is my captive, not my guest. Not that I have had any guests here on this island. I haven’t had anyone else over, period, except for my close family.
She is the first—other than my very close circle of confidants, who I can count on my fingers—who I’ve allowed such close access. I pause half way to the bathroom. What does that mean? Do I trust her enough to allow her such proximity to me so quickly? For that matter, from the moment I first saw her, I haven’t allowed her too far from me. It’s why I’d brought her to this island. So I could observe her without any distractions. What the hell is wrong with me? Why am I acting like a man possessed? Why do I feel so out of sorts? Probably because I haven’t fucked her yet…
Okay, assuming that explains the shortness in my breath, the tenseness of my shoulders, the knot that seems to have lodged itself permanently at the base of my spine—let’s say that’s why I feel so goddamn on edge… It still doesn’t explain why I am standing here in the middle of her room, with her in my arms, about to run a bath for her.
"Michael?"
Since when did I get so solicitous? Since when did I…put another’s needs before my own? Since when did I…want to fight the world and anyone who’d dare stand between us? Since when did I want to pluck the stars from the skies and lay them at her feet?Che cazzo, I am turning into a complete cliché, if there ever was one.
"Michael!"
I draw in a sharp breath.
"Hey, Michael!" She punches my shoulder and I glance down at her upturned face.
What the hell is she doing to me? Since she came into my life, everything really has been turned upside down. It’s time to get things back on track. To show her who is in charge here. Which is me, by the way. Not the curvy, tiny sprite who scowls up at me as if everything that had happened today was my fault. Which it was…but that’s beside the point.
I will not feel sorry for taunting her with what I’d done to the other woman. I will not feel guilty about the fact that I pushed her to the end of her tether, so she ran out and almost fell over the side of the cliff. If I had lost her… If anything had happened to her—
"Michael, hey, what’s wrong?"
"Why the hell should anything be wrong?"
"You’re trembling."
"I am not," I say through gritted teeth.
"Yes, you are."
"No, I am not," I growl, "and you’d best shut up before I do something that both of us will regret later."
"Oh, you’ll do something, will you?" She sets her jaw. "Of all the moronic, bloody, asinine things to say," she snarls and I snap my teeth.
"Enough!"
She stiffens. "Stop talking to me like I am some stupid, brainless twit who you can yank around with a lasso around my neck."
"Then stop acting like one," I retort. "Though, come to think of it," I eye her slender throat, "a collar around your neck may not be a bad idea, actually."
She pales, "Stop trying to frighten me."
"Am I succeeding?"
"No." She blinks rapidly.
"Liar."
"Asshole."
"Alphahole to you, doll." I smirk.
