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His voice, his hold, the aura surrounding him that was choking me with his anger, raising my hackles—it always did that. Smothered, overpowered, obstructed.Influenced.
Me.
I hated it.
I hated him.
Except…I didn’t.
“Billie Rose,” he began in that gentle tone and I sucked in a breath through my nose, got a whiff of spice and man and…
Yeah, I hated Joel Marshall.
Especially, when his thumb brushed lightly over the skin of my forearm and made me shiver. Made me want him, all over again.
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.
Couldn’thappen.
I’d already revealed too much. He’dseentoo much. Fuck, he’d beeninsideme, had kissed that very spot on my arm on his way down my body. Before he’d spread my legs and tongue fucked me the first time.
So, yeah, that shiver, that need, thatyearningcouldn’t happen.
“If you want to make yourself useful,” I said, taking a deliberate step away from him, “the car is full and unlocked.”
He’d moved with me, that damned thumb still brushing my skin, his fingers wrapped around my arm, his body remaining close, his voice gentle. “Sweetheart, you know—”
IknewI didn’t want to hear the rest of that sentence.
Jerking away from him, I managed to put a few feet between us. “Go back to your coffee, Joel,” I snapped, having smelled the bitter beverage on his breath.
Because—fuck me—he was close enough for that, too.
Because—fuckme—I wanted to taste it on his lips, his tongue.
“Or do something helpful for once,” I added when he looked like he was going to retort back, icing my words, knowing I’d entered full Bitch Mode, and embracing it. “I know that’s a stretch for someone like you who doesn’tdoresponsibility, but—”
His jaw flexed, eyes flashing with hurt, and I didn’t get a chance to finish the barb because he spun on his heel and walked away from me.
But he didn’t walk toward his apartment.
He walked to my little SUV, opened the trunk, and loaded himself up.
Then he strode by me, silent, his gaze averted…and his arms full of bags.
My triceps and biceps burned. My back was on fire. My eyes were gritty.
It was hours later. Well into the following morning and I thought that I’d maybe had an hour of rest, collectively.
But we’d needed to get the borrowed trucks back to the Bay Area, so they couldn’t sit in the parking lot for days on end. They’d needed to be unloaded and sent on their collective ways. We’d done that and as the hours had gone by, I’d dispersed a good portion of the supplies to the other evacuation centers, the hotels and motels, the apartments and Airbnbs where my people were staying. More housing had come through, so I’d spent some time organizing that and making sure the information went to my assistant so she could continue getting people out of this fucking gymnasium.
It was noisy. There wasn’t any privacy. Dogs were barking and kids were alternating between stunned and crying.
There was food and showers and entertainment, the best that we could arrange.
Fresh air and a safe space.
But it was a stopgap.
