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“You can just give me your card and wait in the truck,” she offered, oversweet, earning her a huff of a chuckle and the faintest brush of a hand on the small of her back while they crossed the road.
Violet told herself her stomachdid notflutter in response.
She’d underestimated the power of familiarity, normalcy. It was ethereal to see a layout she’d walked a dozen times and to lead Mikel easily to the women’s clothing section.
When she’d asked, “Are we talking an outfit or a wardrobe?” he’d only shrugged, and she’d decided to go with the second, given the unlikeliness she was getting out anytime soon.
The thought turned her guts and made it easier not to feel guilty when she shoved a stack of black shirts and two pairs of dark jeans into Mikel’s chest. He carried them, amusement dancing in his green eyes.
Utility, done.Next Violet moved to the dressier items and plucked up a pair of dark canvas short shorts for him to take. He didn’t.
“It’s winter.”
“And?”
“You’ll freeze, unless these are underwear.”
Violet had to stare at him for a moment. “They’re shorts.” Her intonation said more about what she thought of his intelligence in that moment than the words did.
He hung the shorts back on the rack in pointed fashion and she seethed. When she spotted a crop top and picked it up, it received a similar dismissal.
“What is your problem?” she hissed at him, furious at his attempts to control her.
“What’s yours?” he answered, heat just creeping into his voice. Something inside her soared with the idea this was bugging him. “Is it too much to ask that you don’t make yourself even more inviting to all the Kyles and Roberts in town?”
“Yes,” she spat back, snatched up the crop top and shorts, and shoved them into his chest. She walked away when they hit the floor. The trudge of his boots followed a moment after, and she smirked.
Tiny dresses, short skirts, and shirts with only laces crisscrossing at the back. Violet could practically hear his teeth grind. When she turned to him with handfuls of dark lace and silk lingerie he was flushed, angry.
“Get a coat and something you can actually wear outside of the house, and we’re done.”
A wicked smirk lit her face, but Violet never got to respond.
“Well, I never, Mikel Davis taking a mate and a human at that.”
They turned to greet the owner of the voice, an older woman pushing a cart full of woolen cardigans and floral clothing.
“Evening, Mrs. Jones.” Mikel greeted her politely, and Violet barely wrestled down a laugh while the woman’s gaze catalogued the array of lingerie in his arms, and she sniffed.
“I don’t care what this town says, you’re a good boy, Mikel. A little interesting perhaps.” She eyed the lingerie again, and Violet had to cough to cover her laugh. “But you’re nothing like that daddy of yours.”
Mikel only swallowed in response, a darkness in his face that hadn’t been there before. “You have a good night, ma’am,” he offered in reply.
“What’s with the thing about your dad?” Violet asked, when Mrs. Jones was barely out of earshot.
“What’s with you dressing like a hussy?” he replied, voice low and rough and irritated. She was torn between laughing athussyand being fucking furious that he thought he hadanyright to tell her how to dress.
“You telling me you don’t like it?”
It was a challenge, thinly veiled and acidic. Neither of them had acknowledged the previous night, and part of her ached to validate it.To repeat it, a dark and dirty part of her insisted.
In a flash, her clothes were strewn on the display beside them, and she was pulled forward, pressed up against him, strong fingers on the back of her neck, holding her.
“It’s aboutwho elsemight like it.” His words were practically a growl.
Her body woke up, responding to the heat of his anger and his proximity. “Jealous?” she asked sweetly, pleased.
Gold flashed in his eyes, and Violet had to swallow the saliva that flooded her mouth at the darkness, the depth of the frustration and desire in his look.
