Page 43 of A Wreck, You Make Me

My cheeks are burning with anger. “What are you, the mafia?”

“And the royalty. I can make your life very difficult in this town, if I want to.”

“This isblackmail.”

“It’s what I’ll do if you don’t agree to be mine by the end of the week.”

“Do you think this is funny? Do you?—”

His demeanor shifts then, grows intense and angry as he dips his face and growls, “No, I don’t. I don’t think it’s funny that ever since I saw you at that goddamn strip club, prancing around in your frilly little skirts and your fuck-me heels, looking like a piece of candy that every man in that joint wants to eat, I can’t stop wanting to beat the shit out of the first person I see. It’s not funny how furious it makes me to watch you in that hellhole, with men salivating after you like dogs. Especially when your asshole boss is one of them. By the way, what the fuck is it about you and your bosses, huh? Whyin the fuckdo they think they can get a piece of you? And I know you don’t like it either. I know you don’t like that job. You don’t dress like other girls. You don’tflirt with men like other girls. Or even if you do, you make sure to keep a distance and it makes me want to burn that place down. So no, it’s not funny.”

Then, leaning further down, “But you wanna know the least funny thing? It’s that six hours and forty-three minutes ago, give or take a few minutes, I had you in my lap. I had you exactly where I wanted you,exactlywhere I’ve been thinking about putting you, in the goddamn cage of my arms so you can’t run from me, but instead of doing something about it, I let you go. Instead of playing with you like I wanted to, all I did was play with your panties like a fumbling fucking teenager in the back seat of his first car. Imagine me, the toxic asshole with very little patience, acting like a goddamn gentleman. But I did it. I did it because I thought to myself, she’s young; she’s new; she doesn’t know how fucking filthy I can be. I’m already close to choking her out so I should start slow. I should try to be a little nicer to her. It’ll be hard but hey, for her, I’ll give it a try.

“But no good deed goes unpunished, does it? Not with you. Because all I did was touch you a little bit,grazedyour wet panties a few times. Maybe circled your clit once, and you lit up for me like I’d been petting you for hours. Like I’d been pampering that pussy, paying special attention to it for days on end and you couldn’t take it anymore. You were fully primed and so you had no choice but to gush for me. Drip on my fingers like you really were my ripe little strawberry, just waiting for me to toy with you. So now I’m stuck, aren’t I? I’m goddamn motherfuckingstucktrying to chase after that little taste you gave me, binging on strawberries all night, hoping that I’ll find one that tastes exactly like your pussy. So again, no. None of this is fucking funny. So you will quit that fucking job and agree to be mine or I’ll make you quitbothand take you anyway. And honestly, I almost wish you choose the harder way because I’m not a fan of this job either. In any case, you’ve got seven days.”

His words, all of them, growled and bordering on tortured, sit heavy in my belly. Like instead of saying them to me, he fed them into my veins. He fed his words into my pulpy, messy heart and all I can say is, “I d-don’t taste like strawberries.”

“What?”

“If anything, I taste a little musky and tart and?—”

“Are you really fucking describing to me what you taste like in this goddamnmotherfuckingcafé with all these people around us?” He leans closer. “Because if so, then everyone here is going to get a hell of a show along with their morning coffee.”

My eyes go wide and my belly spasms really hard at that. I know I should let this go but I can’t so I stay on the topic. “Is that why you smell like strawberries? B-because you’ve been eating them all night?”

His nostrils flare. “Yeah.”

I claw my fingers on the glass. “This is not the first time you’ve done that, though, have you? Binged on strawberries like that.”

“No.”

I lick my lips. “Right. Because you… Youalwayssmell like strawberries.”

He notices my action before correcting me, “If byalwaysyou mean this past year, then yes.”

“Because that’s how long you’ve known me,” I conclude.

“Yeah.”

“And I’m a strawberry.”

“Mystrawberry,” he corrects again.

I swallow, my heart thudding and thudding in my chest. My mind racing a million miles a second with all these thoughts and questions and God, things I can’t even name.

So I focus on small things first. “I never said George bothered me.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“I never said I hated my job either.”

“Again, you didn’t have to.”

Right, because he’s a mind reader. Well, notamind reader,mymind reader. Then, “Is that why you remembered my favorite heels? Because y-you remember things about me.”

He grits his teeth as if he doesn’t want to answer me, but then he does. “I remember what you wore the first time I fucking saw you, so yeah.”

“What did I wear the first time you saw me?”