His eyes widened because, unless they just showed up, he already knew who the hell I was. “Uh, I’m…uh, Cameron,” he stuttered.
“And how the hell do you know Kenzlee?” I figured they probably all went to Madison Prep together, but I wanted to make sure.
“We…uh, she used to go to Madison Prep with us,” he answered. And then the hairs on the back of my neck stood up when he cast her a quick glance behind my shoulder and added, “And we used to date. We dated for a couple of years.”
Lars and Hunter were standing in front of me, pushing their little group back before I had a chance to knock his head clean off his fucking neck. “Oh, hey,” Lars said chuckling. “If I were you guys, I’d probably take your party somewhere else.”
“Yeah, Kenzlee isn’t your business anymore,” Hunter added.
“Kenzlee, maybe we should leave,” I heard Alex say behind me, and I finally couldn’t stand it any longer.
The adrenaline from the fight, the frustrations from this week, the uncertainty where Kenzlee was concerned, and now being faced with the type of dude she was used to dating…yeah, I was not in a good head space for this.
I turned my back on Madison Prep, and grabbing Kenzlee by the hand, I drug her behind me through the crowd, but not before shouting to Lars and Hunter to take care of Alexandria. She didn’t know it yet, but by being Kenzlee’s cousin, she fell under the same type of protection Edie and Kenzlee did.
Exiting the barn, I dragged Kenzlee behind me until we found ourselves in a cluster of trees on the opposite side of the clearing. We had enough privacy for me to make my point.
Because I was tired of waiting for her.
Chapter 12
The instinct we feel to self-protect.
Talon~
Ihad Kenzlee press up against a huge oak with my arms on either side of her, caging her in. I loomed over her, pissed that she had given that tool two years of her life. “Is it true?”
“Is what true?” she asked grinding her teeth.
“Were you really dating that asshole?”
“You don’t even know him,” she said, defending him. “How can you possibly know if he’s an asshole or not?”
“Because I know one when I see one,” I snapped.
Her lip curled. “Takes one to know one, is that it?” she retorted.
My hand grabbed hold of her chin, and I squeezed. “Don’t fuck with me, White,” I growled. “Did you date that fucking tool?”
“What does it matter?” she spat. “My life before now is none of your business.”
I didn’t comment on how she let it slip that her lifebeforenow was none of my business, but I couldn’t stop the pang in my chest from her words. “Everything about you is my business,” I argued. “Including if you were fucking that asshole or not.”
Her face was beautiful, perfect outrage. “I wasnotfucking him!” she yelled. “He was my boyfriend fortwo years!We…we…”
I could feel rage unlike anything I’ve ever experienced course through my body. I wasn’t pissed that she wasn’t a virgin, because I was not about to be a hypocrite. My rage was a direct result of not knowing what that jackass meant to her. “You guys, what? Made love? Was he your first and only?”
Her light brown eyes narrowed furiously. “Yes! He was my first, and it was…it wasn’tsleazy!”
He might have been her first, but I was going to be her last. “Do you still love him?”
Kenzlee’s head reared back, and her disgusted expression was genuine, and that went a long way to calming me down. “Of course, not,” she frowned. “We broke up over a year ago.”
And because I was done letting Kenzlee adjust, I said, “I don’t want to see you ever talking to him again.”
She smirked and my hand on her chin tightened as she huffed, “So, as long as you’re notseeingit, then I can talk to him all I want?”
That was it.
