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I stare down at the text in disbelief. Another comes through.
Nine.
And then another.
Eight.
I’m not a patient man, Penelope.
The vibrations rattle the glass, and I stare, helpless, as the text messages count down like a ticking time bomb.
One.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
Silence.
And then the loudest horn I’ve ever heard pierces through the glass and fills my living room.
“Fuck,” I yelp, slamming my hands to my ears.
Matt bolts upright, scattering popcorn across my floor. “What the fuck is that?”
An asshole with delusions of grandeur. The noise is unrelenting, and I know Raphael is petty enough to keep blowing his horn until I go downstairs. Muttering something about being right back, I race through the hall, snatching up my keys and stuffing my feet into sneakers as I go. Downstairs, I burst out onto the icy street, fling open the driver’s side door, and scream at the darkness inside the car.
“Stop! Jesus Christ, stop!”
Raphael is the dictionary definition of unfazed. He lays on the horn with one hand, sleeve rolled to his elbow, and scrolls through emails on his cell with the other. His eyes lift from his screen and pin me with a look of indifference.
“Say please.”
“Over my dead—”
“That doesn’t sound like please.”
Spurred on by a cocktail of frustration and stubbornness, I step up into the car and wrestle with his inked forearm. “For the love of god, I have neighbors—”
My rant is sliced in half when he tosses his cell onto the passenger seat, slips his arm around the backs of my thighs, and drags me onto his lap in one swift motion. Wearing only shorts, my skin crackles in anticipation as they slide against the soft wool fabric of his slacks.
His arm fastens around my waist like a seatbelt and the scream of the horn dulls, as if I’m now hearing it underwater. I’m too distracted by the hard, hot weight of his chest against my back, and the warm, masculine scent engulfing me. It’s a dangerous combination that makes the streetlights through the windshield grow hazy.
His breath skitters over the nape of my neck. “Say please, Penelope.”
“Please,” I whisper.
“I can’t hear you.”
Irritation snaps me back to reality. I spin around and hook my fingers over the chain of his collar pin.
“Please,” I growl.
Our gazes clash. As his hand slides off the horn and grazes the side of my thigh, the amusement dancing in his eyes simmers to something hotter.
His smirk melts off his face, and suddenly, the silence I was begging for is too loud.
“See,” he says softly. “Wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Heart hammering in tune with the newly awakened pulse in my clit, I scramble to get off his lap and into the passenger seat.
