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Her voice is so full of ire and spark that I have to swallow my laugh. I turn to take her in. She looks so young and innocent in jeans and a light sweater, nothing like the outfits I bought for her.
“I’ve been busy.”
Her eyes narrow,voice cold. “I don’t care.”
“Yeah, you do. You’re angry that I’ve stayed away the past few days and that I sent you to bed.”
She lets out a huff and slams her pen onto her notebook. “Whatever. I get it, okay? You don’t like me and I don’t like you.”
Except she does like me. And she doesn’t know what to do with it. It’s all over her pretty face.
I can use that.
“Ivy…” I walk into the kitchen and pull a bottle of white wine from the wine fridge. Then I grab two glasses and the opener.
This next part is going to be a master dick move because I’m going to be nice, sweet, all the things I’m not. I’m going to pretend that I’ve actually got emotions, the kind she can relate to.
“Maybe I sent you to bed because I needed time to work things out. The situation between you and me…it’s changed.”
“I know.”
The nagging as fuck voice inside my head screams it out, but I ignore it. I’m very fucking aware that things have shifted between us. I’m very goddamn aware that I’m so consumed by a need for her body that I can’t ignore it.
But I can’t let it interfere, either.
She’s definitely got feelings.
And I have a job to do, the one that seems to take the back burner lately because my brain is so warped by pent-up lust.
I walk back to the living room, open the bottle, and sit on the floor with her. I hold out a glass to her, then pour the wine.
“Tell you what,” I say, watching her nervously stack her books. “Why don’t we go to dinner? Wear the new shoes I got you.
“You’re bribing me with dinner and clothes.”
I smirk. “To start. But there will be other things, too. Later.”
“Sex things.”
“We have a mission, and you’re helping in exchange for your sister’s treatment.”
She lifts an eyebrow. “And punishment.”
“There are some things I might be willing to negotiate.” That’s the fine edge of truth and lie. I’m willing to let her think that’s the case. It won’t be. It can’t. Ivy needs to pay for what she did to me.
Her body can’t distract me from the reason why she’s really here with me. And I won’t let my feelings get in the fucking way any more than they already have.
I just have to keep remembering the others who also need to pay, for much different crimes.
I take a sip of the wine as my gaze falls on one of the textbooks. It’s sort of funny how we’re alike in some ways. Like chemistry. She majors in chemistry because she wants to get a degree that will help her do some good for the world.
My self-taught bullshit and natural aptitude lends itself to crime. Drugs, poisons, all the fun things. Some would argue—those in the seedier industries—that I am a master of doing good for the world, too.
“How did your father feel about you going to college? Jaxson made it sound like he had pretty rigid ideas about how his kids would live their lives.”
“He hated that I went to school.”
“Ivy’s brattiness runs deep,” I say, not able to stop the smile from creeping across my face.
