Page 26 of Danger Close

“How dareI?” he said with special emphasis, as though through all of this, the kidnapping, the dinner, the hostility, I was the crazy one! I was the unreasonable one?

Cobra leaned into me, those hazel green eyes, the heterochromia he’d passed on to our child, stared at me with undisguised scorn.

“You run off with our kid’s friend to what? Hit on strangers? Smells pretty fishy to me, sweetheart.” He sniffed, like he was scenting me. “Were you about to get in his car and run off? You going to go back to his trailer and show him a good time?”

I slapped him.Hard.

His face barely turned even though I had put my entire body into it. The men at the gym said I had a good right hook, and though I had used an open palm instead of a closed fist, I expected more of a reaction. Maybe even a stumble? I at least expected him to turn his head with the force. But he didn’t.

I’d mistake him for a statue if it wasn’t for the burning in his eyes that made the grin of his irises more prominent than brown. Just like our daughter, his eyes changed colors with his mood. Any extremem emotion like fury, sorrow, or even happiness made their eyes green. Brown was their temperateness.

Right now, his eyes were almost as green as the forest of pines right on the edge of this tiny town.

Then they flashed, the tension in his eyes softened, and a lascivious smile pulled at his lips as he quietly growled, “You want to get laid, sweetheart, why don’t you try asking the guy who pumped a baby in you?”

I gasped, “Putain.”

It was a filthy, disgusting thing to say! But still, heat pooled in my core.

My eyes fell to his plump bottom lip, his prominent nose, his brows that had grayed with age, making him even more distinguished than he had been when we were young. He’d lost the softness of youth, and had broadened into nothing but corded, ruthless muscle, like the animal of his namesake.

He stepped closer. I put my hand on his chest. I didn’t know if it was to stop him or because I wanted to touch his heated skin.

“Cobra,” I whispered, shaking my head, “Don’t.”

He paused. His smile disappeared. He clenched his jaw tight, and even through the rough beard, I could see the muscles in his jaw ticking.

He took my no as a rejection of his advances, but I wasn’t sure if that was what I meant.

Don’t tempt me. Don’t make me feel. Don’t drown me in memories of a happier time.

Don’t force me to be more than the walking corpse I was. Corpses can’t feel pain anymore, and I’d rather avoid pain than feel… this.

“Everything alright here?” The bartender said, as she pulled a rag off her shoulder, and slapped it on the bar. “I’m not into having trouble in my house, Cobra. If you’re going to get in a fight, take it outside.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m so sorry.”

“You know me, Ellen,” Cobra said, his eyes never leaving mine even though he directed his words at her. “I don’t lay hands on a woman unless she begs for it.”

Heat pooled in my core, and I clenched my thighs together. I almost whined, suddenly wanting to beg for exactly that. For his hands, his kiss, and all the ways I knew he could satisfy a woman.

But then I looked away, staring at the woman behind the bar, my mouth open.

She knew him? Did that mean that he’d… had they…?

Lust was quickly amplified by jealousy when I turned my fury to my ex-husband.

As if he could read my mind, Cobra smirked. Then he turned a steely gaze toEllen. “Themissusand I were just leaving.”

“Missus, huh?” Ellen’s snide tone was all the answer I needed.

He had carnal knowledge of that woman, and the fury that burned through my body had me slapping him a second time. “Bâtard!”Bastard!.

His head whipped to the side, and when he slowly turned back to me, that smirk was back. He didn’t answer me.

“I don’t care what you do, Cobra Guerro, just get it the hell out of my bar.” Ellen put her hands on her hips. “I don’t have time for this nonsense. Not today.”

Cobra broke eye contact with me to talk to his… liaison.