Page 30 of Wicked Little Darling

I wasn’t sure I’d met a single person who talked about or looked at Dakota with kind sentiments—including me, I supposed.

I could understand that, sure, but it still pissed me off. He might be annoying, but he wasn’t a total douchebag that warranted talk likethat.

No one deserved to be criticized because of their appearance.

Fuck those girls.

One of them spotted me and stopped smiling immediately, then tapped her friend, who turned to follow her line of sight.

Shit.

I pulled back, praying they didn’t come over here.

Actually, I kind of wanted them to. Then I could let them know how uglytheywere.

I heard the girls talking in hushed murmurs, then the sound of backpacks being zipped.

Were they leaving?

I turned and braced my hands on the shelf in front of me, then peered around it.

They were walking toward the stairs.

Good, they were leaving.

“Who are we hiding from?”

I jumped and tripped backwards at the sound of that low, raspy voice in my ear. Two hands gripped my shoulders, and anger quickly replaced the terror that had almost stopped my heart.

“You asshole—” I tried to turn around, but Dakota was holding me firmly in place. “What—hey, let go of me!” I whisper-shouted.

This fucking prick thought he could manhandle me? Why? Just because I was smaller than him?

I tried turning again, but Dakota moved with me and it felt like he was holding onto the bottom of my backpack, too, but both his hands were on my shoulders so I wasn’t sure how.

“Reese—hey, stop moving,” he said quickly, and the serious tone of his voice made me pause.

And then I remembered that everything was a game to him and I wasn’t going to let him keep playing with me. I pushed backwards until he hit the shelf behind us. He grunted, then squeezed my shoulders. “Reese, stop, my belt is?—”

I tried to pull away from him and rip myself out of his grasp, but my backpack got caught on something again. “Letgoof me! Are you this fucking bored with your life?”

Dakota made a frustrated sound, then wrapped his arms around my chest and squeezed me back against his body. His voice was right next to my ear when he said, “My belt buckle is caught on your bag, so if you could just calm down for a second before you rip my dick off?—”

“Oh, fuck your stupid dick!” I snapped, thrashing in his arms. He was holding onto me so tight that I could barely move, and goddammit, I wished I wasn’t so much smaller than him.

“You don’t really think before you speak, do you?”

I hated the amusement in his voice, and I wanted to get far, far away from him. His belt was caught on my bag? As if I’d fall for that.

“I swear to god I will fuckinghurt youif you don’t let go of me right now!”

I set my feet on the bookcase in front of me, then shoved off with all my strength. Dakota stumbled back into the bookcasebehind him so hard that his arms loosened from around my chest, so I darted forward to get away from him?—

And went all of two inches before my bag caught on something.

Dakota pulled me back into him as he walked forward into me. He pushed me up against the shelf in front of me, gripping it with his hands on either side of my head, caging me in with his arms and using his body to hold me still. “Reese—seriously, stop fucking moving and let me fix this. Goddamn you’re vicious.”

His entire body was pressing into mine. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think with him this close, and then he slid one hand from the shelf and trailed it across my chest, laying his palm flat against my pounding heart. His other hand disappeared, there were a few tugs on my backpack, and the whole time, Dakota’s lips were right by my ear. He made a small sound in the back of his throat, then laughed, and all the fine hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I shivered.