I clench my jaw, trying not to aggravate her by saying the wrong thing. I don’t know how unstable this lady is, but she sure can’t be trusted.
“Look,” I throw my hands in the air in surrender. “You have all this stuff in your car, and you were trying to escape me on this damn muddy, dead-end road. What else was I supposed to think?”
She’s stewing in her anger but doesn’t say anything. I can practically see steam coming out of her ears. “How about ‘Hey, this lady’s driving home, let her be?’”
“But I knew you weren’t driving home. This is my town, and I know everyone.”
“Your town. Here we go.” She snaps her fingers with a look of total disgust on her face. “Cops in small towns always think everything belongs to them and they’re the head of everything. Cops, mayors, and all that shit.” Her eyes look to the side angrily as if reliving some painful memory.
When her darkened eyes return to me, I somehow feel like she’s not talking about me. Well, not only about me anyway. She doesn’t look like someone from a small town. Quite the opposite. She looks like a shark from New York, if not for all the junk in her car.
“You’re the law and the order,” she keeps on going.
In other circumstances, I’d let it slide, but she irks me. I’m getting mad just looking at her. Her rapidly rising chest draws my attention too often. Her narrowed eyes are lined with a black catlike wing. Her lips are pressed tight. Everything makes me mad.
So I stride toward her and point my finger at her face.
“You’re a squatter until I talk to the owners.”
“I’m not,” she spits back.
“Yes, you are. Maybe where you came from, it’s normal to invade someone else’s house, but here, in this small town,” I say mockingly, “we respect each other’s privacy.”
“Yeah?” She cocks a hip and glares at me with an open challenge. “Then respect mine,” with that, she presses her nail into my chest, “and get the hell out.”
“Or what?” I lean closer, breathing like an enraged bull.
“Or you’ll find out a few tricks I learned from the place I came from,” she hisses into my face, rising on her tippytoes so she can get closer.
In fact, she’s so close I can smell her fruity shampoo and see the tiny specks in her gray eyes.
“And what tricks are those?” I challenge back, completely forgetting where and what I am.
“The kind of tricks,” she licks her lips while her eyes drop to my mouth, “a good boy like you can’t handle.”
I can’t see her eyes anymore because mine are transfixed on her lips, which look more swollen now than they were a moment ago. Her tongue keeps peeking out, wetting her lower lip, and driving me positively insane.
I’ve long forgotten why I came here in the first place. She’s standing so close that with every breath, her chest touches mine. Her eyes shoot hot daggers at me while she keeps constantly licking her lips, and mine suddenly turn dry.
I inhale deeply, enjoying the sweet smell of fruit and the woman in front of me.
Good boy. This is not the first time she’s called me that, and we’ve only met twice, and only for a few minutes. She knows nothing about me.
“Cat got your tongue,” she smiles evilly and adds breathily, “good boy?”
My eye ticks. I clamp my jaw shut and lean forward, probably about to make the biggest mistake of my life when my radio comes alive.
“Boss, I could really use your help at Cat and Stallion.”
I press the button on the radio on my shoulder as I keep my eyes on this infuriating woman. “I’ll be right there, Jennica.”
Taking a slow step backward, then another one, I say, “I’ll be checking your story.”
“You do that,” a smile grazes her lush lips, “good boy.”
My nostrils flare, but I keep walking. No matter how much I want to go back and show her just how bad I am.
ChapterNine
