Page 23 of Forged in the Fire
“We haven’t been here that long, and we’re still getting set up.” I pushed from the doorway and took a couple of steps into the lobby.
I was instantly hit with that scent.
Almonds and apples dipped in sweet cream.
Did she light a damned candle?
“So, this isn’t how you always operate?” It was loaded with sarcasm.
Didn’t know what the hell I was doing, but I kept moving toward her. Boots thudding against the ground in time with her panted breaths.
I stopped an inch from her.
Eclipsing her in my shadow.
Her ass hit the edge of the desk as she backed away, and I kept angling for her, pinning her to the wood.
Her heavy breaths pelted the front of my neck, and a wisp of her hair brushed across my cheek.
Every line of her body had gone both pliant and rigid. Everything gathering to a shivery pinpoint as she waited for what I was going to do.
I edged even closer, my movements slow as I reached around her and flicked on the button for the computer.
The motor whirred to life as I edged back a fraction, though I remained close enough to whisper in her ear, dragging out each word like a blade, “Even usbikersknow how to run businesses,Brinley.”
Then I pushed back, leaving her panting where she was splayed out on the desk.
Disconcertment flitted all over her face.
Then she shot back to her feet.
A tall, raging fire.
“You’re an asshole, do you know that?” she hissed.
My chuckle was raw. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Wild curls thrashed around her as she slowly stole in my direction.
Clearly, she wasn’t about to back down.
Hips swaying from side to side as she approached.
A frisson of energy swelled in the room.
She cocked her head. “You want me to tell you something that you don’t know? How about this?”
She reached out with her pointer finger and jabbed me hard in the middle of the chest. “I am not a toy, and I’m not here to entertain you or play your games. If working in this shithole fulfills my brother’s debt, then so be it.”
She kept jabbing the sharp tip of her fingernail in the same spot, driving home her point. “But I will not allow you to messwith me. Not you or any one of these assholes around here. Do you understand me?”
I snatched her by the wrist.
A motherfucking flame licked up my arm.
Ferocity whirled through her eyes as she glared up at me.
I mashed my teeth together, and something very stupid deep inside my chest tightened in a way it shouldn’t.
