“Then stop talking like an asshole!”
Dimitri lunged forward across the table, snarling at me, and I realized I’d leaned forward too. Our faces were only inches apart. Aside from the alpha gold nowdefinitelyoverlaying his eyes, the gray of his irises held gleaming flecks of mossy green, and dark blue ringed the outside. Jesus Christ, those were nice eyes. The kind you could look at for a long time before you got tired of—I flung myself back into my seat like a snake had bitten my nose.
Oh, fucking hell. I panted for breath, way too worked up for someone who’d just been gazing into Dimitri Pechorin’s eyes.
He didn’t move, still fixing me with that hard, penetrating stare, lips curled to show me a hint of fang. And I couldn’t have moved if I’d been the one getting paid a hundred grand, pinned there with all my muscles locked up.
“You’re stalling,” he said at last, slowly, as if working his way through a chain of logic. “How much of a wardrobe do I really need before we even get down to business? I only need to look respectable for a first meet and greet with your family. What’s next, a series of etiquette lessons? Do you even want to go through with this? Or are you wasting my fucking time?”
Since I’d been considering etiquette lessons a few minutes before while watching him eat, only my state of frozen immobility prevented a visible flinch.
“It’s my time too. And my dime,” I managed.
“Not yet,” he shot back. “Since you haven’t paid me a fucking cent.”
“I’ve bought you all this—”
He bulldozed right over my protest. “All this shit I don’t want or need, yeah. You’ve spent a lot of money on stalling, I’ll give you that.” Dimitri laid his hands flat on the table, fingers flexing slightly as if he was trying to keep his own claws in. Christ, that would be perfect: my criminal alpha Eliza Doolittle wolfing out in a mall food court and causing a riot. “No more bullshit. We get all this crap loaded up in the car and go from here to the bank. You give me the money. And then we go to your place, or wherever else you want to do this, and we mate. Today. Final offer, Brook. Do it or don’t.”
Fuck. Today. Right now. My mouth went dry, my head spinning. He wasn’t ready. My family wouldn’t accept him, and it’d all be for nothing.
There had to be some way to put this off.
But there really wasn’t, because the firm set of Dimitri’s jaw and the hard, uncompromising glint in his alpha-glowing eyes told me I’d run out of room for negotiation.
“There is no try,” I mumbled, like a moron.
Dimitri went still, staring at me like I’d started speaking in tongues. Jesus, a guy wasn’t allowed to make aStar Warsreference, or something?
“Huh,” he said at last, cryptically. “So? What’s the verdict? I can go either way on this. But if you want my opinion—” He cut himself off, shaking his head. “Right. No more opinions. What are we doing?”
That falling-off-the-cliff feeling I’d had when I agreed to meet him in the hotel room came rushing back, heady and terrifying. Would he be there to catch me when I hit the ground? I’d be handing him so much power over me: he’d be able to physically dominate me in my own space, control my shift if he felt inclined, use his alpha power and his status as the dominant mate to enforce any behavior he wanted. At least I knew he wouldn’t be abusing his alpha strength to use me sexually, since he didn’t want to fuck me in the first place.
A deep breath, shaky and not quite hitting the bottoms of my lungs, didn’t do much to settle me.
“We’re going to the bank. And then—and then we’re going to my house.” Maybe the gate guard would tell my mother I’d brought home a guest. But she’d be going out of town this weekend for a spa getaway, and by the time she asked me about it, I’d already be introducing Dimitri as my mate. Besides, I couldn’t face doing what I had to do anywhere but in my own safe den, surrounded by the sight and scent of my own possessions and space. “We can mate there.”
Dimitri let out a long, slow exhale, something like relief flitting across his harsh face.
“Then let’s go. I can carry the bags. That seems like a job for someone big, dumb, and polite, right?” He stood up, suiting the action to the words, gathering up all of the shopping in his big, rough hands.
It should’ve made him look ridiculous, a bulky, broad-shouldered guy like that with his resting-murderer-face holding all those gaudy, shiny bags with tissue poking out the tops.
Instead, it made mefeelridiculous for having bought it all in the first place.
“Silent. You forgot silent,” I snapped, getting out of my own chair with none of Dimitri’s predatory grace. Stress made my condition worse, and I could only pray I didn’t start having any seizure activity on top of the clumsiness and lack of balance.
Dimitri grunted. “Don’t take your bad mood out on me, princess. This wasn’t my idea. I’m just along for the ride.” He flashed his fangs at me. “And the money.”
Princess? What a fucking asshole. “Don’t call me that. It’s demeaning.”
I did my best to sweep past him with my nose in the air, but I ended up bonking my hip on the edge of the table and skittering past him cursing under my breath instead.
“What’s demeaning about it?” he rumbled from behind me, as I weaved my way through the scattered tables and chairs, trying not to trip over other people’s shopping on my way out of the food court. “You’re rich, pretty, and snobby, and you’re looking for a husband to rescue you from your shitty family. The shoe fits, so to speak.”
Okay, fine, nice fairy tale pun there, but the rest of it…pretty? No one had ever called me that before.
I wasn’t, obviously. And that was even more demeaning. The righteous anger I tried to dredge up wouldn’t quite materialize, though.
