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The car door opens. I end the call quickly and shove the phone back into my jacket pocket, then I push up off the ground. Little pieces of dirt and gravel stick to me, so I brush off my butt and the backs of my thighs before slowly heading toward the car.
Dare doesn’t wait on his own side for me to get in. He walks around and stops on the sidewalk in front of my door.
It’s still raining, but just a drizzle. Dare is wearing a black zip-up jacket, but it hangs open. Little droplets of rain bead atop the water-repellant material covering his broad, sexy shoulders.
He looks good standing there, and I have a little more goodwill toward him after joking around with Hannah. He might remind me as soon as his mouth opens, but for this moment, I forget about being mad at him and just want to touch him.
For all he lacks in emotional awareness sometimes, Dare is very observant, so he notices I’m feeling less stabby toward him as I approach. I can see it in the way his hard jaw softens, his guard lowering ever so slightly.
I’m waiting for him to speak, but he doesn’t say a word. We both just stare at each other for several moments. Finally, I break the silence myself.
“You didn’t have to come get me.”
“Sure I did,” he answers automatically. “It’s late. It’s dark.” His gaze flickers over my body almost dispassionately as he adds with visible annoyance, “You’re half undressed.” His gaze hits mine, and I feel a bit of alarm at the base of my spine from the dark look in his eyes. “You put yourself in danger.”
I lick my lips, dropping my gaze. He’s probably right about it being dumb to be walking around alone this late looking the way I do, but I refuse to take all the blame here. “Yeah, well, my boyfriend was being a dick, and I needed to get out of the house.”
His lips curve up faintly, but I don’t think he’s truly amused. “Surely you knew he had that capacity before you committed to him.”
“Actually, he tricked me into the commitment and revealed his true colors once it was too late to back out.”
“Sounds like a guy who knows what he wants.”
“And doesn’t care how many rules he has to break to get it.”
This time, when the smile tugs at his lips, I see the glint of amusement in his dark eyes. “Sounds like a guy you shouldn’t piss off.” He reaches out and grabs the open sides of my jacket, using them to pull me closer.
“I wasn’t trying to piss him off,” I murmur, reluctantly moving toward him since he’s not giving me much choice. If I fight him pulling me closer, he’ll just pull harder and make me trip and fall against him.
“No?” Before I can answer, he adds, “Just sneaking off so you could make your phone call, then?” My blood drops several degrees as he reaches out and tucks my damp hair behind my ear. “Did you want to warn her?”
My mouth goes dry. “Warn her?”
Dare’s warm lips find my cool skin as he absently kisses my temple. “That I saw the picture she only intended for you?”
I don’t say a word. Anything I could say feels too dangerous.
“Next time you think about putting yourself in danger to save someone else, I want you to think very carefully about the potential consequences.”
“Consequences?”
“It’s Halloween night in a bustling city, and you look like a fucking whore.”
My heart sinks at the casual brutality of his words, the breath leaving my lungs in a rush of shock.
“Suppose someone else found you before I did?” he murmurs, caressing my face to ease the harshness of the blow. “Someone with much worse intensions.”
It’s hard to imagine someone with worse intentions than you.
I almost say it on impulse because he just said something so mean, but I don’t want to make things worse, so I keep the words locked up in my throat.
“You shouldn’t be so reckless, mermaid. Do you know what I would do if someone took you away from me?”
His words cause my stomach to drop like a rock tossed into a dark abyss. It’s a free-fall with no sense of where the bottom might be. Dread takes root just like he wanted it to, but I push it down. On impulse, because he’s threatening me in that insidious way of his as he caresses my face so tenderly, I reach up and touch his face, too. I slide my fingers through the damp locks of his dark hair. He doesn’t deserve softness, but my words come out soft anyway. “Nobody’s taking me from you, Dare.”
“No?”
I shake my head solemnly, then lean forward and go up on my tiptoes. He closes the rest of the distance between us, lockinghis arm around my back and hauling me close as his greedy mouth claims mine.
