AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Queen. I needed Queen. To channel her strength and her sass.
I mentally detached myself. Took a step back. The young girl sitting on the floor by the woman’s feet wasn’t me. It wasn’t my golden hair tied up in cute pigtails. It wasn’t me in a pink pair of shorts and a white T-shirt with a rainbow on it.
“I need that photo,” I ground out. He couldn’t have it. Not that memory. Not any. “I need that photo,” I demanded louder this time, pulling out of Flynn’s arms and disrupting the professor’s flow. He paused, regarding me with a lift of his eyebrow.
Fuck you very much, arsehole. That was my photo, not his. It was my memories, my family.
He nodded. “The slides are available online. You can get a copy of the picture from it. May I continue?”
“No,” I spat back, gritting my teeth. I shook my head, my lips turned up in a snarl. I wanted to take him down. I wanted to hurt him and punish him. But first I needed him to say the words. No beating around the bush. No implications. Cold, hard words so I could get the most satisfaction from exacting whatever painful end on him I could. “Rosa Weatherall is the person behind ReimagiINC? You’re saying she was responsible for the investments?” They were framed as questions, but I already knew the answers.
“Yes.” His single-word reply was like a punch to the gut, but Queen was in charge now, and she wouldn’t dare give him the satisfaction of seeing her flinch.
I sat up straighter. Looked directly at him, never shying away. Never hiding for a moment. “You’re doing a podcast on her. On Rosa?”
A murmur ran through the room, a soft snicker. I was proving my classmates right—the dumb blonde can’t even keep up in the introductory lesson—but little did they know that I was more powerful than any person in this room. I could make every one of them beg me for mercy.
The professor was a bold one though. He regarded me, shifting his stance to widen his legs. He was bracing for a fight. But he was running scared too. His arms crossed over his chest was a shield. A defensive stance—a reaction to the wrath I was directing at him.
“Yes,” he dragged out, trying to throw out all the big dick energy. I bit back a caustic laugh. “The podcast, Tarnished Crown, is an investigation into Rosa Weatherall’s actions as company director and her subsequent disappearance in late 2008.”
Her name on his lips again. I snarled, narrowing my eyes at him.
His mouth twitched. He was biting back a laugh.Stupid emotional little girl.I could practically hear the words going through his mind like he was beaming them onto a jumbotron. If he wanted to play that way, fine. I cracked my neck, tilting my head from side to side while I buried my fury deeper than the Mariana Trench.
“She died,” I stated, my voice cold. Utterly devoid of emotion.
Surprise registered momentarily before he buried it under a mask of professional indifference. “Yes, in a boating accident.”
I pressed on, still needing more. I was going to delight in hurting this man. In making him wish he’d never even come across Rosa Weatherall’s name. “What do you suspect she was guilty of?”
“At best, gross negligence.” Silence greeted us as we went head-to-head. Every other person in the room sensed danger. But he barrelled on, his bravado overruling any sense. I almost felt sorry for him.
I was a wolf. He was the oblivious grandma, opening the door to the harbinger of his death.
“Right.” I plastered a saccharine smile on my face while my insides boiled. It was as if my skin was as paper thin as Earth’s crust, bubbling pools of super-heated lava flexing the membrane in the moments before it blasted through, turning him to ash and dust. “Thank you. Please, continue.”
I waved my hand as if shooing him away. Professor Reid narrowed his eyes, his glare a spark to my tinder dry temper.
“Zee,” Flynn cautioned. When I turned to him, ready to flay him for telling me not to disrespect the professor, I only saw concern in his eyes. Worry for me. He cupped my face, brushing his thumb against my cheek, and the move nearly undid me. I slid my fingers through his, gently taking his hand off my face.
Queen’s walls slammed into place again, that cold bitch ready to scorch the earth for me.
“Talk to me,” he begged.
“I’m gonna fucking kill him,” I gritted out, a hatred as pure and evil as the devil himself surging through me with the ferocity of Mt Vesuvius exploding over Pompeii.
Three
Flynn
A
lick of desire coiled low in my belly, jitters travelling through my body and raising gooseflesh. I could blame the air-conditioning, but it was the combination of Zee and the professor that was really doing a number on me. He was… heck, he was dark and mysterious. Sensual. The way he moved, the way he spoke, even the way he thought were all such a turn-on. And those muscles and that serious expression he wore throughout the introductory lecture were sexy as hell.
Combine his dark good looks with Zee’s blonde beauty, and sparks erupted. He tried hard not to notice Zee, but I saw him. I saw the bulge in his perfectly tailored pants—one I would absolutely volunteer to get my mouth around. I saw the way his eyes lingered on her, not breaking her stare until I’d been as hard as a fence paling. When he looked at me, it sent a ripple of awareness through me, one I was still feeling the aftereffects of. I saw what she’d done to him. I’d seen his blown pupils and the tight set of his jaw as he fought his body’s instinct to prime for sex. He was far better at controlling himself than I was. My dick was standing at attention, begging me for relief within a few minutes of class starting.
But now, I wasn’t sure whether to run and hide or stick like glue to Zee’s side. Actually, that wasn’t true. I would always stick by her, no matter what. It didn’t matter that I hated confrontation. She needed me, so I’d be there.
