Page 136 of The Ruthless Note

He’s tried to destroy me once and failed. How much more of me will he take if I give him a second opportunity?

Dutch lowers his face so his cheeks are almost pressing mine. If I tilt my head sideways—just a centimeter—his chin will brush my ear.

The temperature in the room climbs over a hundred degrees.

I’m squeezing the rag for dear life, anything to keep me still. To keep me grounded when I’m standing in the middle of a force of nature that can level hearts and minds and make wrong feel so, so right.

“No one else can have you, Brahms,” Dutch growls. “No matter how hard you fight me, no matter how hard you claw and bite and struggle, you will always be mine.”

My nostrils flare. I try to will myself to walk away, to move a safe distance, to keep from playing his stupid mind games, but I’m frozen solid.

I shiver when his lips graze the tip of my earlobe.

“I may favor you, but don’t think that you can push me because I let you get away with it.”

I’m drowning in the current, trapped against his body. Thankfully, there’s a part of me that still has room to fight.

“What do you want, Dutch? What do I have to do to get you to leave me alone? Do you want an explanation? An apology? You want me to say I should have told you I was ‘Redhead’? Don’t hold your breath. I don’t regret anything except meeting you.”

He looks down at me. His lips are curled up cruelly.

I look up. Emotions are broiling in his hazel eyes. Anger and heat and disgust and desire all crashing against each other like warring waves in a tsunami.

A spark travels through my body. It’s the same wave of power I felt that night when Dutch caught me in the changing room as my other self.

That night, he didn’t recognize me as Cadence Cooper, the scholarship kid he’d threatened to kick out of Redwood. That night, he saw a girl he wanted to impress.

He was a lot less prickly and abrasive. Almost soft when he spoke to me, almost vulnerable with the things he shared with me. And I stood there, knowing who he was and who I was and what that information meant.

I stood there and I had power.

Finally.

I could control rather than being controlled.

Whether Dutch knows it or not, him getting angry that I might be interested in Sol shows a chip in his armor. It puts a dagger in my hands and, oh, I willcherishthis opportunity to swing.

“As much as you think you control me, can you control Sol? What if I said that I like him and he likes me?” I whisper tauntingly.

Let him stew in his jealousy. Let him bake in his own coffin. Why should I rescue him? Why should I show him that my body craves his the way flowers crave sunlight?

Dutch stares down at me with the early morning sunshine glinting like the flames of hell in his eyes. His jaw clenches and his muscles are coiled so tightly that I could send him springing into space with just a flick of my fingers.

“You have feelings for Sol?” he whispers.

“Maybe.”

I’m not giving him an out. He’s backed me into so many corners, pushed me to face the parts of myself that I never wanted to unleash. It’s my turn now.

Dutch slides his thumb over my bottom lip, teasing an ache that sends a gasp spiraling from my lips.

“Nice try,” he growls like an animal.

My heart thunders.

“Your body doesn’t lie, even if you do, Brahms. You’ve wanted me from the first moment you laid eyes on me, didn’t you? And there’s a part of you that can’t stand it. The same way I do.”

My breathing escapes in harsh pants and although I wish I was stronger, my knees buckle with the heat.