Page 53 of His Trick

The sound of his boots pounding across wet gravel wasn’t subtle. Hell, he was hunting me, even though he didn’t have the stomach for the kill.

The way he had growled in the rain could have signified I’d be his first. He was strung so tight, like a bow about to crack from lack of release.

I could smell it, that mix of panic and rage, with the crisp scent of the rain. It made my blood fucking sing, and my dick apparently enjoyed his anger just as much.

I didn’t bother moving when he came charging at me, his hands shoving at my chest. He smashed me back into the wall so hard I bit my lip on impact, and the blaze in my head made singing little birdies appear as they flew around my fucking face.

“Where the fuck did you get it, Carrington?” His voice was fucking raw, cracked open by my love note.

No wonder he had hidden from me. Daddy, having been mentioned clearly, gutted him. He may have hated his dad, but I couldn’t knock his taste in tobacco. The Turkish scent was perfect in my lungs.

Shiloh’s blue eyes were wild and bloodshot, locked on mine like he wanted to watch me convulse on the ground.

Good Boy. Let me see the fire, Sunshine. Make me bleed for you.

“The photo, Carrington—where did you find it? How the fuck do you know about my father?”

Oh, so not daddy after all. But father.

Father was a cold term. One used when you wanted to detach yourself. I knew because it’s the only term I used when I was referring or speaking to my asshole sperm donor. There was bad blood here, and my sleuth job had been amateur, admittedly on last-minute notice.

The fury in my Sunshine tasted good in the air, sweet and spicy, better than the cigarette.

I let him shove me again, throwing my body back into the textured brick. He only snarled for now. But I was curious to see what his father really meant to him.

Right now, I could see the anger. That much was damn obvious.

His fists bunched into my shirt, his face so close the water droplets soaking him connected with mine. He glared at the replica of what his father smoked and ripped it from my hand, throwing it to the wet ground.

I frowned.

Dammit. Those tasted good, and that was my last one since I had smoked the whole pack under his window.

“Now, that’s just rude. What’s got your balls in a vice, Sunshine? Are you pissy because your old man is in the slammer? Or maybe because, according to the internet, you put him there.”

Slam.

My body already ached from my own abuse of the gym, and this ping pong routine was starting to piss me off. I grabbed his wrists, still locked on mine, and pushed forward. With him so riled up, we were matching in strength and were at a stalemate. I didn’t move back, but he didn’t either.

“You’re so cute when you’re angry.”

My foot slipped on the goddamn wet ground, and he took advantage, smashing me to the ground and dropping on top of my body.

We fought like two dogs thrown in a cage, nothing but pure instinct.

I made him bleed for me, busting his lip with my head, and he punched me in the fucking nose. Round and round we fought. Positions switched, and more blood was spilled between the two of us. He had me pinned to the ground, my body protesting from the soreness.

“You don’t get to come into my fucking life and rip it apart at the seams, Carrington!”

Punch.

“You don’t get to lay some fucking claim to me!”

Whump.

“I don’t belong to you!”

Crack.