Page 17 of A Wreck, You Make Me (Bad Boys of Bardstown #3)

He knows he’s got me. I can see it in his dark eyes.

Dark and pretty and evil . I clench my fists in my lap, lest I give in to temptation and punch that look right off his face.

Then, “Well, what kind of a big brother would I be if I didn’t make sure my little sister’s best friend’s date is capable of giving her the happy ending she deserves? ”

Okay, I’m hitting him. I am . I don’t care what he does in retaliation but I’m wiping that triumphant look off his face right this second.

But somehow, I curb myself once again and say, “Yes, that’s what I am.

That’s all I am. Which means you don’t need to be interrogating my date like you’re really my big brother, and?—”

I feel Joe squeezing my hand, interrupting me. “Hey, I don’t mind. He’s just trying to look out for you.”

Look out, my ass. He’s trying to tell me that he hasn’t forgotten what I did two days ago. Seriously though, what a fucking asshole. All I did was knee him in the junk, and it wasn’t as if it was uncalled for.

But all I do is smile at Joe for being so nice and squeeze his hand back.

Only for me to notice a second later that he —the asshole—has his eyes on our joined hands at the table and his jaw is clenched.

And it’s clenched so hard that a muscle is beating on his cheek.

Somehow, I can feel the pulse of it on my skin, the burn of it, and I have to take my hand back and fist it in my lap.

At this point, the waitress brings our drinks and the moment breaks.

Thankfully. I let Joe direct the conversation.

Which mostly revolves around soccer. About practice, the upcoming season.

Joe is careful about not bringing up the recent media rumors or last year’s championship game.

And despite myself, I breathe a sigh of relief.

But I think I did it too early because just then, as I’m settling down into his sudden presence, I feel something. Something rough and scrape-y, something warm, and I feel it on my knee.

My right knee.

It’s a hand. It’s fingers. It’s his. What ?

Am I… Is this… Oh God, is he touching me? Under the table.

Yes, he is.

He’s touching me. His fingers are grazing my knee. Actually no, not just my knee. I think his hand is so big and his fingers are so long that I feel his thumb rubbing circles on my thigh. On the underside of it, and my head snaps up, my eyes skittering over to him.

I have been looking down at the table, focusing on the dark grain of the wood, trying to tune him out, but now I’m watching him like my life depends on it.

I’m watching his face, impassive and aloof, the way his lips are moving as he talks to Joe.

I’m watching his deeply breathing chest, massive and corded. His shoulders, relaxed and broad.

I’m watching how calm he appears as he touches me for the first time.

I mean, he has touched me before, but not like this.

Not like… whatever this is. I can’t even think of any words to describe it.

Except his thumb is moving, sometimes in a circle, sometimes side to side.

Sometimes he even massages my soft flesh with those warm and rough fingers of his.

As if trying to not only memorize the feel of my skin but also mold it into whatever shape he wants.

Once he’s done that, he moves on. Slowly, carefully, almost tenderly, I feel the heel of his palm sliding up. I feel his hand going under the hem of my dress, and he doesn’t stop until he reaches mid-thigh.

I’d wonder why he stopped here, why he picked this very spot, but I already know. He did it because my flesh is the meatiest here. It’s the juiciest and softest, like I’m really a fruit, a strawberry, his little strawberry and he can’t wait to eat me.

That’s it. That’s the word. Eat.

He’s eating me with his touch, his fingers.

They squeeze my flesh, knead it, pinch it.

He digs the pads of his fingers into my thigh now, like all that grazing and tender touching was only a facade.

He doesn’t do tender. Not even when he’s touching me under the table while my date sits only a few feet away.

And I’m sitting here, frozen, my eyes wide, my cheeks flushed and my heart racing. I should move away but I can’t. I should put my hand on his and stop him. But I can’t do that either. All I can do is take it. Whatever he’s doing to me. And like it.

Oh God, I like it, don’t I?

I like his brutal fingers and bullying touch. I like it so much that I have widened my legs. I’ve moved to the edge of my seat, brought my thigh closer to him so he has more access. I like it so fucking much, his hand on my thigh, that I’m… wet. And the realization is what makes me move in the end.

It makes me jump.

I jump so high that my knees knock against the table, clattering the dishes and spilling the water and our drinks. I also knock off his touch in the process, thank God. And four eyes turn to me. But only one set seems remotely concerned. Joe’s.

“You okay?” he asks.

My heart is pounding but somehow, I manage to nod. “Y-yeah. Sorry. Just moved a little too fast.”

He keeps frowning. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. Yeah, I just…” I take in a deep breath before continuing, “I don’t know what’s taking them so long to bring our food. Can you,” I swallow at the lie I’m about to tell, “check? I’m r-really hungry.”

Joe still regards me with concern, but being the good guy he is, he nods and leaves to go find our server. I breathe in a shaky breath, then finally turn to the man who’s been wrecking my peace ever since he sat down.

I don’t know what I expected to find when I at last looked at him.

Maybe I thought he’d be his usual self, smirking and amused at my expense.

All provocative while being unaffected himself.

But finding him angry would not have been my first guess.

Actually, angry is too small a word for him.

He’s absolutely seething. And it’s not just the expression on his face, which alone is brutal and grating.

It’s also his body. His harshly breathing chest, the vein on his temple that’s pulsing.

Not to mention his voice, when he growls, “Lose him.”

“What?”

“Right the fuck now.”

“Are you…” I breathe out sharply. “What is the matter with you? Are you absolutely crazy? You touched me. You?—”

“He started it,” he clips.

“He started what?”

His jaw pulses for a few seconds as if just the thought of it, whatever Joe started, is making him even angrier. “He touched you.”

I frown. “What?”

Another tic of his jaw. “He put his hand on you.”

It takes me a few seconds to understand what he means. I didn’t even remember that Joe put his hand on mine earlier when I was starting to get agitated. Even so, I still don’t understand what that has got to do with him touching me under the table. “So?”

“So he doesn’t get to,” he declares, his eyes hard. “Not in front of me. Not fucking ever .”

“What? That’s…” Another breath, in hopes of calming myself down. “I know what you’re doing.”

“Yeah, what?”

I clench my teeth. “This is revenge, isn’t it? This is for what I did the other night.”

Another flash of anger flickers through his features. “Is it?”

“Yes, it is,” I state. “Because that’s how your twisted mind works.

Twisted and evil and… toxic. Yeah, that’s what you are.

You’re toxic .” His nostrils flare with a sharp breath but I keep going.

“But I’ve got news for you. First, you totally deserved that.

Totally and absolutely deserved what I did at the club.

In fact, you got off easy. And second , if you think you can intimidate me by coming here and crashing my date, then?—”

“Tell me something,” he cuts me off. “Do you really like this fuckface or is this for my benefit?”

I draw back. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means ,” he says, his voice low and rough, “are you on a date with him because you wish you were on a date with me?”

I grit my teeth again. “I know it’s hard for you to believe, but not everything revolves around you.”

“Not everything, no. Just all the things you do.”

“You—”

“Because if you really like him, then I’m sorry to burst your bubble but he’s a fucking moron and you’re wasting your time.”

Irritation snaps my spine straight. “He’s not a moron.”

“He’s spent the entire time talking to your chest,” he states.

He has? I never noticed. I look down at my chest for a second.

I do have some cleavage showing. It’s not a crazy lot, because I don’t really have a lot to show off in that department, but it’s still more than what I get to expose at the coffee shop with Joe.

So I’m not really sure how I feel about that, about Joe staring at my boobs.

But then again, we’re on a date, aren’t we?

So what if he’s looking at my chest a little bit?

I snap my eyes back to him. “Maybe he likes my dress.”

He tightens his jaw. “There’s nothing to like about that dress.”

My chest clenches with a sting. Of course he’d say that. He’s cruel that way. Cruel and vicious. A fucking viper. I was right when I called him that. He’s not a thorn. He doesn’t just wreck people. He poisons them.

But before it shows up on my face, the hurt his words have caused, I snap, “You know what, I don’t care what you think, okay? I like this dress.”

“It’s nothing compared to what’s inside the dress.”

I draw back. “Excuse me?”

He rakes his eyes over my face again all angrily. In a way that makes me think he doesn’t want to, but he also doesn’t not want to, either. I have no idea what it means except that it makes my chest tight and my skin tingle and prickle.

Then, as if talking to himself, he murmurs, “Your hair, it goes everywhere. It touches everything, your face, your neck, your arms, bursting with life. It’s the first thing anyone sees when they look at you.

And your face, dotted with a million freckles.

It’s like cream sprinkled with cinnamon.

Like crispy fall. So if Joe’s more interested in looking at your fucking dress than staring at your face, and mapping out your freckles to see what constellations they’re hiding then yeah, he’s a moron on top of being a fuckface. ”

I think I heard him wrong. My heart was beating so loudly through everything he said, there’s no way I heard him correctly. And if I didn’t hear him right, then it stands to reason I didn’t understand what he meant by it either. Right?

I mean, it felt like he said he… likes my big frizzy red hair and my hideous freckles.

But that… That doesn’t make sense. Not only because there’s nothing to like about those things, but also because he’s him and didn’t I just call him a toxic reptile in my head?

How can he then turn around and be… nice?

Well, almost nice, which in his case is still a giant leap.

“I…” I pause to catch my breath, my fingers still threaded together in my lap, but mostly because I don’t know what else to do with my hands. “I’m just trying it your way.”

A muscle jumps on his cheek as he asks, “What’s my way?”

I look into his eyes and state, “Using other guys to… dull the pain. For wanting an asshole like you. So maybe, it is for your benefit after all.”

I want to say I’m proud of myself. For sticking to the plan. For sticking up for myself. For not melting at the last second and remembering to put him in his place. But I don’t. As in, feel proud of myself.

All I feel is this sting in my belly when his eyes flash and his chest swells up with a long but sharp breath. Then, leaning closer, he growls so low it’s almost a grunt, “Make an excuse and ditch him.”

“But I?—”

“And then use this to pay for that fucking drink you just had,” he keeps going, sliding something toward me on the table.

I look down and it’s his credit card. “What?”

His jaw is ticking. “He isn’t going to pay for your drink, I am.”

“What? That’s just?—”

“Because this isn’t a fucking date,” he declares crazily.

“It is a date. It’s?—”

“Because if it’s a date, instead of going home, he’s going to the emergency room. And you don’t want that for poor Joe, do you?” All I can do is blink at him as he continues, “When all of this is done, you meet me at my truck across the street.”

My eyes are wide. “Meet you?”

“You’ve got ten minutes.”

My heart is pounding and pounding . “Shepard, I…”

His angry eyes flick back and forth between my scared ones as he says, in a voice even lower and rougher than before, “You like saying my name, don’t you?

You liked whispering it in my ear the other night just before you ran away.

So trust me when I say you really don’t wanna make me wait, and you sure as fuck don’t wanna run.

Because when I catch you, I’ll let Joe and every motherfucker in this town watch as I throw you over my shoulder and drag you out to my truck, just so you have a reason to scream my name out loud.

And I’ll make you scream it so goddamn loud that it'll feel a lot like that revenge you were so afraid I was here to exact.”