Page 10 of Tap Left
“I have no idea.”
“Think, LB.” He taps me on the forehead. “Think really hard about what I would have done if that situation were reversed.”
A bitter, strangled laugh erupts from my chest. “You’d say something mean. You’d never do what I…”
My lips slam shut when he smiles at my stupidity. And it is stupidity. Because I asked him to make me like him, and here I am, doing the exact opposite. But still, I can’t stand that annoying smile on his too-perfect face.
“So next time I should tell you to fuck off?”
His amusement dies a swift death. “Let me make something clear to you, LB. If you ever tell me to fuck off, I will beat your ass red… with my bare hand.”
My arms explode in goosebumps, and I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me. I shouldn’t like Daire when he acts this way. I shouldn’t like him at all. And if I had any sense about me, I would have walked away from this dysfunctional relationship years ago. But my brain is programmed to want all the things I’m not supposed to have.
Chocolate. Candy. Assholes.
“You didn’t answer me,” he says.
I count to three in my head and release a breath. “What would you like me to say?”
“You do what I tell you. That’s how this works. The only exception to that rule is if we are playing a role in which I specifically tell you otherwise. If you can’t understand that simple concept, then this stops here and now.”
Now all I want to do is pry his fingers off my face and knee him in the balls. I hate him, and if I ever thought for a second I could forget that this is the cold, hard reminder.
“Message received,” I seethe. “Loud and clear.”
He releases me and takes a step back.
“Good. Now let’s move on to the important topics.”
"Such as?"
"Your business."
"What does my shop have to do with my dating life?"
Daire squeezes the bridge of his nose and looks around my sanctuary like it’s one of the nine circles of hell.
"You might find this concept difficult, Lola, but men want the whole package. Even if they just want to fuck you for one night. At least they can say they fucked the hot lawyer, or yoga teacher, or in your case… the hot librarian."
I’m still trying to figure out if he was serious when he called me hot as I trail behind him to the back of the store. He makes himself at home in this space too, sitting in my chair and rifling through my things. I sit beside him and watch in silence while he reviews my business records with his razor-sharp eyes. I can’t stop tapping my foot or second guessing this whole situation.
Daire grabs my thigh and squeezes. “Stop fidgeting. It’s not an attractive quality.”
I mutter an expletive under my breath, and he glares up at me.
“You want to bag a man, Lola? Then you act poised. Closed off. Mysterious. If a man thinks you’re nervous, he’ll know he has the green light to walk all over you. He’s going to fuck you and then fuck you over with a lame excuse as he sneaks out of your apartment the next day.”
I don’t want to admit that he’s right, but I know it’s true. Because I’ve heard those lame excuses before.
“I’ll work on it,” I tell him.
Daire draws my attention to one of the lines in the ledger that caught his interest. "Am I going blind, or does the value entered here say cookies?"
"Yes," I answer. "It does."
"In the payment line," he clarifies.
"It's Mrs. Woods," I explain. "She bakes me cookies in exchange for a new book every week. And then I share them with the customers."
