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“Yeah, so what?” I spin to lock eyes with his. “I wasn’t flirting back.”
“Not what it looked like through the window, Kitten.” He leans in dangerously. “I don’t share.”
“I wasn’t flirting with him, Cash.”I don’t flirt with anyone.
“Gave him that pretty smile.” He chucks my chin. “That’s flirting.”
I can’t help it; I roll my eyes. “You’re being ridiculous.”
For a moment, confliction passes through his dark gaze. Like he honestly doesn’t know what he’s doing. Finally, after a few beats of charged space ticks by, he murmurs softly with a deadly undercurrent lingering just beneath the surface, threatening to pull me under. “It’s becoming clear that I’m a jealous man, Kitten. I don’t like it, can’t stop it, won’t even try. Is what it is, so don’t toy with me.” He leans in and I can taste thedanger in his breath, as though it’s a part of him. Stitched into the fabric of his being. “I won’t take kindly to it, and there will be consequence for the sorry suck you choose to give my smiles to. This is your last warning.”
On that last warning, I take a quick step back. Alarm bells ring in my mind as flutters swirl in my belly. A memory of sitting in the kitchen with one of my girlfriend’s comes to mind, the sound of Mrs. Lauren’s voice a crisp memory,“A man who gives you flutters is rarely the man you want for you. A woman is built with a magic tool I like to call intuition. Every woman has it. It’s weaved into her from conception. It’s a part of her, as deep and pure as the soul. But not every woman learns to listen to her intuition. Some even mistake its warnings for good. But you see, I believe intuition is a woman’s greatest strength. It tells us of danger before danger is visible. It tells us we should be on guard, even though there have been no warnings. And sometimes, when we like a boy—a boy who might be bad for us—dangerous for us, that very powerful tool gives us butterflies. A flutter in our bellies that many mistake as good, thrilling. Some even chase those flutters, though I have no idea why. Those flutters, girls, are a warning from your intuition. You’ll feel it deep in here.” She touched a hand to her belly, pressing. “More often than not, it means danger is close. If a man is giving you those flutters, it very well could mean that he’s not a good man for you. Instead, I recommend looking for aman who makes you feel safe and secure and respected. Whose absence of flutters you view as a good thing.” She smiled gently as she turned to the door of the room we’d been gushing over boys and butterflies in. “Listen to your intuition, it won’t steer you off course. Not ever.”
“You make me feel butterflies,” I whisper, my eyes never leaving his.
His brows slant in confusion, then he grins slow. “Good.”
I shake my head, shaken. “Not good.”
His brows dip deeper, and he cocks his head to the side. “Girls like butterflies.”
“Butterflies are intuition,” I feel my voice quiver. “Intuition is a woman’s first warning that something isn’t right. That—that she may be in danger.” Something dark passes over his expression. I feel another flutter and swallow hard. “Girls mistake butterflies as good, as thrilling. They mistake them for excitement and wonder, but that’s wrong.” Quietly, I say, “Did you know I felt the same flutter in my belly, to a lesser degree, I’ll admit, just now with you as I felt when I encountered a mountain lion while hiking with my father?” When he says nothing, only watches me, I continue, “It was my body telling me I was in the presence of a predator. That I should look for a way out. For escape.”
Cash steps into me, his hand lifting to the side of my face as long fingers stretch tospear into my hair. He cradles my head in his big hand, his touch a gentle contradiction to the rough in his words. “I will never hurt you. In fact, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to ensure your safety. My line is drawn at you, for you. If I thought you were in danger, there is no line I wouldn’t cross. Don’t misunderstand me, Kitten, when I say I don’t share. I won’t risk losing you to someone else. I’ll just eliminate the competition.”
“Cash…” I shake my head, dumbstruck.
“I’m not a good man. I don’t come from a good man.” He leans in so close; I can feel the brush of his lips as he speaks. “But I will always, always be goodforyou. So those flutters you feel, they’re not wrong. Iama dangerous man, a predator, if you will. But I’ll only ever be dangerousforyou.”
I shudder against him, because my mind is whirling. My body is torn in two warring directions, and I’m confused. I want to step into him and let him absorb me the way I fear he might, if given the chance. At the same time, with the same intensity, I want to turn and run. To shield myself from the force of him. To hide like a child from a monster under her bed.
He makes the decision for me, dropping his mouth the small space it needs to touch mine. He’s whiskey and sin and cinnamon all rolled into a decadently dangerous man. It’s intoxicating and numbing and consuming and—real.
This—this game we’re playing—is starting to feel too real.
Maybe he’s playing the hero now, but will I feel he’s the hero when he pulls away from me, having gotten what he needs as he shuts me out? I’m so, so confused.
“Cash,” I whisper, the sound broken.
“Hmm.”
“I want to go home.”
Cash gets right down to giving me what I want. Right after he plucks a few more bras from the wall and a big handful of panties from the table, dropping yet another load of cash on his fake girlfriend who feels very real butterflies.
nineteen
Wrenlee
I sequester myself to the library after class until late on Tuesday. Cash hadn’t been happy about my rejection of a ride home, but I’d insisted on staying behind. In the library, I wasn’t tempted by the low timbre of Cash’s voice to leave the safety of my bedroom, foregoing studying and bills just to listen to him form songs from the caverns of his dark soul, glimpsing through a window he keeps securely shuttered from the world into the deep of him.
I already feel too tightly tethered to my fake boyfriend, so it’s time I start putting some space between us, cutting some strings.
I’m about to pack up when a pretty woman slidesinto a chair across from me. It’s not unusual to sit with someone at a table in the library, but it is unusual when there are so many others open for use that aren’t occupied at all. It’s no matter, really. I’m just leaving anyway.
“I love that book.” She points a gel tipped nail to the new fantasy romance I’d treated myself to before shoving her hand into her bag and pulling out her copy of the same book. “O.M.G. I’m not finished yet, but when I saw you had it, I had to come talk books. How far are you?”
I can’t help my grin, because Ilovetalking books. Before I’d moved to New York, me and the girlfriends I’d had had talked books for hours. We’d fought over who was reading the best book and why. It had been fun, and I’d missed it dearly. “Not far. I just started, actually.”
