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5
Mercy
Ignoringmy immediate cringe at the “princess” nickname, I turned to Wylder. “Put me to work how?”
He beckoned me with a curl of his index finger. “Come with me.”
I followed him out of the kitchen and down the hall. Partway along it, he halted in his tracks and swiveled toward me. In that moment, his eyes looked as fiery as his auburn hair.
“Just so you know, Gideon is like my brother and Kaige will willingly carve out his chest to prove his loyalty. I don’t expect anything different from Rowan.”
I stared at him. “Why are you telling me that?”
He shrugged. “Just making sure you don’t get any ideas. You may look like sin incarnate, but you’re never going to sway my men.”
As if to prove his point, his gaze slowly traveled down my body. It felt as if he’d touched me instead, lighting up flames all across my skin. He looked at me as if I was standing bare in front of him instead of wearing sweatpants and a loose tee that showed only the slightest hint of cleavage. My pussy clenched.
I found my voice. “I’ve already taken your test.”
Wylder laughed. “Only the first part. You said you’d do whatever it takes to earn my help.”
“So what’s next?”
“I volunteered you for cleaning duty.” He took a few more steps and pointed through a doorway.
As I reached him, I recognized the room where I’d found him last night—the one with the pool table off to one side. All traces of the party had been wiped clean from the rest of the house, but this large space was still littered with trash. A sickly smell like stale alcohol and… vomit? turned my stomach.
Wylder rested his hand on the small of my back. Despite the stink and my wariness of him, my nerve-endings lit up where he touched me. So much that I almost didn’t process the words when he leaned close to my ear and murmured, “Well, get to it.”
I blinked at him. “Pardon?”
“You heard me.” He stepped back, waving to the room. “Clean the whole thing. I want it spick and span.”
Was he kidding me? “I’m not yourmaid.”
“Oh, no? Wasn’t that you begging me for my help last night? Are you backing down so easily, Princess?”
“I’m not backing down. I’m just saying this has nothing to do with how strong I am or whatever it is you want me to prove.”
Wylder moved toward me again with an air of menace, but I stood my ground. I realized the error in my judgment when he stepped right up to my face, close enough that he could have kissed me with just a little tilt forward.
“You are going to clean this room for me,” he said, emphasizing every word. “Because I told you to, and while you’re here, what I say goes. If you can’t learn that lesson, you can forget about getting anything from me.”
My eyes dropped to his mouth and the quick flick of his tongue as he spoke, and another flare of unwanted heat washed over me. Wylder smirked as if he knew exactly what I was thinking about. “No questions, Kitty Cat?” he said in a low, husky voice that made my stomach tighten. Suddenly, the nickname didn’t sound half bad.
I snapped myself back to reality. What was wrong with me?
Ihadsaid I’d do anything. If this was what he wanted, I sure as hell wasn’t throwing in the towel over a messy room. “Fine. Get out of my way, and I’ll get to it.”
I ventured farther into the room, my gut lurching as the smell thickened. Empty chip bags, half-eaten pizza slices, and bones leftover from sticky chicken wings lay in total disarray. Apparently Wylder’s guests hadn’t been familiar with the concept of garbage cans. Therewasa pool of vomit dried into the carpet in one corner, and… had someone taken ashiton one of the chairs? What kind of drugs had been in the drinks last night, exactly?
And now it was up to me to get rid of all this crap to the Noble heir’s satisfaction.
Wylder propped himself in the doorway, his bright eyes tracking my every move. “What are you doing?” I asked, annoyed both at him and at me for being affected at all by his presence. “Don’t you have more important ways to spend your time?”
“I don’t know. I think supervising you for a bit should be both important and incredibly entertaining.” He folded his arms in front of his chest. “Go on. There are cleaning supplies in the closet at the end of the hall.”
Girding myself, I stepped past him and marched to the closet. From the shelves inside, I grabbed a box of garbage bags, a pair of rubber gloves, a package of bristly sponges, and a heavy bottle of cleaning fluid. I lugged it all to the pool table room and then went back for a bucket that I hauled to the kitchen to fill with water.
