Page 13 of Anger Bang
And yet here she was, in all of her dorky glory, asking a man she’d just met earlier that day to have sex with her.
Sex she’d brag about to her sister.
Revenge sex, just like she’d imagined.
Of course, it wasn’t going to happen. He was just giving her some pity hope.
Guys like Kade St. James never gave her a second glance. Men like him, with their sandpapery low voices that made her heart speed up. Men like him, who looked like they’d been in more than a few bar brawls and had won them all, weren’t interested in finding out more about a mousy bookworm like her. Men who exuded so much sex appeal it was hard to look them straight in the face without breaking into giggles.
Kade was the ultimate ofthatkind of guy.
From the tip of his nose that had obviously been broken a time or three to his strong, calloused hands to the way he looked at the world as if he was daring it to fuck with him, the man was the textbook definition of would never be interested in a pushover, nose in a book, wallflower like her.
What had she been thinking in approaching him?
Her heartbeat sped up and her palms got damp as she tried to swallow past the embarrassed panicky feeling making her throat tight.
Seriously, maybe there was something more than pungent gas coming out of the fumaroles back at the barn—she wouldn’t put it past the producers to spike nature for the sake of ratings. Airborne aphrodisiacs at a weeklong destination wedding seemed like the perfect bit of chaos that would keep the audience glued to the live stream twenty-four seven.
“I’m sorry about that,” she said as she stared down at the tips of his scuffed boots. Why was she looking at the brown leather work boots rather than Kade? Because actually looking at his face was beyond her capabilities at the moment. Yeah, she wasn’t particularly proud of herself, either. “I shouldn’t have put you on the spot back there. It wasn’t fair to you. I mean,lookat you. Then look at me—” She shut her mouth hard enough that her teeth clanked together. Too bad she did so too late and now all of what was swirling around in her brain was outside of her mouth. She exhaled a groan of misery. “I should go.”
She stood up and whirled around to the path they’d taken to get here, intent on getting away from Kade and the site of her latest humiliation as quickly as possible.
That counted as flight, right? There, she’d gotten a twofer of fight and flight on the same night. Her therapist would be so proud. Meanwhile, her heart was hammering against her ribs, her palms were all sweaty, and she had enough adrenaline rushing through her system to power a small city.
“Thea.”
It wasn’t an order for her to stop, and yet she did, his gruff tone making her bite down on her lip as electric anticipation fluttered in her stomach.
“Turn around and look at me”—he paused for half a breath—“please.”
This was when she should be putting one foot in front of the other.
Right.
Left.
Right.
Left.
Right to the safety of her glammed-up RV. She might even—translation: definitely would—break into the welcome basket of alcohol and hope that in the morning she wouldn’t remember any of tonight’s awkward humiliations.
Yeah, good luck with that, Theadora Eloise Pope.
Fine, she’d go raid Jackie’s booze stash, too. Maybe even her mom’s. Seriously. It was gonna take a crate of sponsored vodka to make her forget tonight.
Instead of doing any of that, though, she let herself get tugged around by some invisible string so she was facing Kade.
He was standing now and had shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans as the breeze coming down off the mountains ruffled his dark hair. She’d needed the heat from the fire a few minutes ago, but when one side of Kade’s mouth moved three whole fractions of an inch higher on one side in what was probably his version of an encouraging smile, getting any warmer was the last thing on her mind.
“Tell me your plan,” he said.
Plan?
She had a plan?
Well, usually yes. That was kinda her thing. Schedules and planners and ten-point agendas were her happy place. But now? She was flying by the seat of her pants, and she had no fucking clue what was supposed to happen next.
