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Becca tugged her close and whispered something in her ear, prompting her to roll her eyes before pulling her arm back from her friend.
“Fine,” she gritted out through clenched teeth. “But I’m not going anywhere with you while you’re armed.”
Smart girl.
I stared at her, trying to read the truth in her pinched expression, but for once, came up empty handed. She was a wild card, this Ava Jade. I didn’t like that. Not one fucking bit.
“I’m not—”
“Don’t fucking patronize me,” she said,interrupting me.Heat licked up my neck, making my shoulders strain with the sudden urge to hit something. An urge I never let get the better of me, no matter how hard it tried to.
I closed the gap between us, sensing more than seeing the group gathering at the entrance to the pier at my back. She didn’t balk at my approach, even though I stood almost a full head taller than her in heels, and she wasn’t even that short to begin with. Maybe five-six.
I drew my gun from the back of my waistband and watched as her keen stare alighted on it, while her fingers jerked toward the hem of her dress.
Becca flinched when I passed the gun to her. “Go on,” I told her. “Take it. If there’s even a single scratch on it when you give it back…”
I left the punishment up to her imagination, keeping back a laugh as she grabbed it out of my grasp with two fingers, holding it as though it might explode if she weren’t careful. “Safety’s on, sweetheart,” I told her. “Maybe best to keep it out of sight, yeah?”
She swallowed hard before carefully setting it into her purse and stepping out of my way. She mouthedsorryto Ava Jade, and I swept an arm out for her to take the lead.
“You first,” she insisted, not budging an inch until I took the first step, guiding us down the dock and through the parked cars along the water’s edge. She kept up, only a few steps behind me. I could feel her tension like a rubber band stretched as far as it could go, waiting for its opening to snap.
We rounded the last car and stepped off the gravel and onto the dirt where a sheer rock face jutted up out of the earth, curving like a hand cupped around the edge of the lake. You could climb it from just down the trail. Jump in from the forty-foot height if you were brave enough.
It wasn’t exactly a thrill I was seeking tonight though as much as the silence and privacy the dark shadow of the cliffside would provide.
“Well, you got me out here, all alone. Congratulations. Now what the hell do you want?”
I cocked my head at her, not used to being spoken to that way by anyone, never mind a girl. I didn’t know whether I wanted to sew her lips shut for the offense or lick away the blood still staining a corner of her frowning mouth.
“Do you have any idea what you just did in there?”
“Thought you didn’t care?”
“I don’t.”
“You have a funny way of showing it.”
“Where were you last night?” I asked, changing tactics. Needing to clear my head.
A flicker of recognition danced over her eyes before they settled back to a glare.
“What?”
“Don’t patronize me,” I said, using her own words against her, but she didn’t squirm under the pressure of my accusation. “You wouldn’t happen to know what happened to Grey, would you? Seems he had a run-in with a particularly feisty tree branch.”
She crossed her arms, making her tits swell above the cut of her dress. They, too, were freckled with crimson, and I locked my jaw, grinding my teeth at the sight.
“I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe he needs glasses if he’s running into trees.”
A laugh got stuck in my throat, held back by the dam of my lips.
“Bri’s right, you know,” I uttered, side stepping her, forcing her to mirror my movements to keep the distance she was so set on maintaining between us. “You don’t belong at Briar Hall.”
“I don’t think you do either,” she muttered, seeming to regret the words once they’d vacated her lips.
I lifted a brow, my body hardening as I began to cage her in, making her back up toward the rough rockface. Not knowing if I wanted to see how those lips tasted or toss her over the bank and into the lake. Would she cut me, too, if I tried?
