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“You sure as fuck aren’t anyone else’s.” I step forward into her space until our chests almost touch. She glares up at me but doesn’t move away.
“Throw that in my face as well while you’re at it, huh? Poor pathetic Rose who’s only ever gotten laid once in her life.”
“Don’t.” I shake my head, my eyes holding hers as I suck air in through my nose. Forget trying to ease the thumping in my chest. There’s a full-on herd of wild buffalo in there now, stampeding against my ribs.
“Don’t what?” She screws her face up, jabbing a finger into my chest. “Did I say something you don’t like,Boss?”
I grab her hand in mine and pull her hard against me.
“Don’t talk about yourself like that. Why are you even thinking about him?”
She snorts, her eyes glittering. “Gareth. Casey. They’re both liars. And what does that make me? The stupid idiot that listened to them.”
“You’re not,” I whisper, lifting my other hand and snaking it around the back of her neck, pressing my thumb over the hammering pulse beating next to her windpipe.
She leans closer until her lips are almost touching mine, and I breathe in vanilla and petals. One more inch and I will be kissing her. Feeling her soft lips against mine again, just like in the alleyway. Blood races to my dick as her eyelids fall closed.
My beautiful Sunbeam.
I apply pressure to the back of her neck to bring her to me. She’s so close that our lips dust together.
“Don’t worry,” she breathes as I part mine, ready to close the final miniscule space keeping us apart. “You don’t have to fake-kiss me tonight.”
Then she shoves hard against my chest and spins out from my grasp, storming off up the street.
“Rose!”
“Leave me alone, Dax,” she cries over her shoulder as I catch up with her.
“Will you stop, please? You’re upset. I’m not leaving you here by yourself.”
“Like you care!”
“Of course I fucking care! The town is full of pricks like that guy back there who wouldn’t think twice about putting his hands all over you.”
“So what?” She wraps her arms around herself as she rushes down the street with me by her side. “Maybe that’s exactly what I need tonight. A distraction with a man like that. In fact”—she turns suddenly and marches back in the direction we came from—“I’m going to go back there now and talk to him.”
“The fuck you are.” I grab her arm and pull her to me. Her eyes are shining with undisguised pain, thinly masked by two drinks and a whole lot of anger.
She fists my shirt as she glares at me, then narrows her eyes with a grimace. “I think he’sexactlywhat I need tonight, Dax. He can help me erase the memories. Replace Gareth’s fingerprints as the last ones on my skin.” Her eyes drop to my mouth as I grind my teeth so fucking hard my brain throbs in my skull.
“That’s what you want? To hide away with someone like that?” I spit. “Separate your body from your soul and be a hole to fuck? Get on your knees and suck that prick’s tiny cock?”
She gasps quietly as I hold her close and bring my lips to her ear to whisper.
“We both know you won’t, Sunbeam. Because as much as you lie to yourself about dopamine and love being just a chemical, you still want it all. There’s a tiny part of Rose Jacobs that still believes.”
“Stop.” She pushes against me, but I don’t let go.
“You know how I know?” I dust my lips down the silky skin of her neck to her collarbone and back up, fighting to stay in control as she shivers from my touch. “Because all those men you told me about, that you’d flirt with when you went out. You never went home with any. Not a single one. And I’m not about to let you start tonight.”
“What are you going to do, Dax? Break every man’s hand in town tonight that I speak to? Go back to jail?” Her words are sharp and jagged, aimed to hurt me. But I would rather she fight with me than do anything else with another man.
“No. I’m going to do this.”
I bend at the knee and hoist her over my shoulder, wrapping an arm around her legs to secure her in place.
She bangs her fists against my back. “Put me down. Dax! Put me down.”
