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TATUM
Clara fiddled with the hem of a slinky new shirt showcasing her breasts in a way that left me salivating.
Glancing up at me briefly, apprehension lined her forehead as she cautiously suggested, “You can leave, you know. Go back to your penthouse in Manhattan. We’ll be fine. We lived here alone before the hurricane, without a man to protect us, and we survived. The threat is over.”
Eyes darting to mine, she trailed off at the scowl on my face, not daring to finish her thought.
Smart girl.
She might be brave, but she wasn’t stupid, and she promptly realized her comment was a provocation. I heard the caution in her tone, and she was right to be wary because she had to know that I would hate what she was doing. She was retreating, backtracking, running away.
A snarl vibrated in the base of my throat, and I made no attempt to suppress it for her benefit. The sooner she accepted who I was, who we were together, the better off we would be.
After I went down on her and ate her cunt to my heart’s content yesterday, I heard her talking to Grigore in the dressing room.
Ever since, she’d been distant, avoiding me to the point where I had to deliberately stop by her bedroom at the end of the day.
I leveled a glare at her that had her eyes slipping away from mine. She took a step back, putting more distance between us.
Good, my ego was slightly appeased by her fear. It was strong enough I could scent it in the air.
“Over my dead body,” I jeered, softly closing the door of her bedroom behind me. The place was a wreck with clothes strewn over every surface imaginable. There was a pile of silky lingerie piled high on top of her nightstand that distracted me for a moment.
She wasn’t intentionally taunting me, I knew, even though bringing up the hurricane ripped the fresh wound wide open again, reminding me how close she’d been to getting hurt. If I’d been doing my job as consilier instead of letting my emotions get in the way, Clara would’ve already been living with Mama. Instead, I’d been more than happy to fob her off to Alex’s mother. Once the hurricane warnings sounded, I should’ve immediately gone to my mother’s house. At least then, I would’ve been close by to retrieve Alex’s relatives and Clara.
After the fear and terror I’d lived through, nothing on God’s green earth could drag me away from her or my family.
Getting into her space, I bent my head and growled into her ear, “You should’ve been in my house, sleeping naked in my bed, not in Alex’s mother’s house being rattled around like a rag doll by a tornado.”
“I hated you,” she shot back. “I wouldn’t have stayed at your place, much less in your bed.”
“You think I would’ve given you a choice?” I admonished. By now, the tension was hot like a live wire, snapping and hissing between us. I was close to the edge of snapping myself.
“I wouldn’t have slept with you, Tatum, so I most certainly would not have been ‘in your bed,’” she finished with air quotes, twitching her shoulders for good measure.
Dear God, this woman tested my patience.
And I loved it.
I gave her my most arrogant smirk. “Who said there would’ve been any sleeping, sweetness?”
“Oh my God. You’re incorrigible,” she said, her voice tight with fury.
I took a step back and leaned against the door of her room.
“You’d be in my bed,” I said matter-of-factly, crossing my arms over my chest. Her gaze shot to my biceps stretching the fine Egyptian cotton of my dress shirt. “Even if I slept in the guest bedroom, you would’ve been writhing that tight, hot little body between my sheets. Touching your sweet puss in my bed.”
“I doubt it. I didn’t like you,” she persisted.
I heard the past tense. I didn’t like you, not I don’t like you. I grinned down at her scowling face. Yup, definitely past tense. Even in the middle of fighting me, she couldn’t deny the change in her feelings toward me.
Pushing myself off the door jamb, I twisted the lock. It resounded loudly in the silence lying heavy between us.
Approaching her, I said, “Is this how you want to play it? Want me to show you what I would’ve done to ensure your place in my bed, legs spread-eagle for me, my tongue deep into your sugarcoated pussy?”
She threw her palm up to ward me off. I barreled down on her. Forcing her to fall back on her bed, I leaned in and caged her in my arms.
“You think it’s a good idea to test me when I’m on the edge like this?”
