Page 31 of Anger Bang
That was a direct shot. He took a half step back and looked at her, trying to figure out how she knew. Had Dex told her?
Thea’s eyes went wide behind her very-serious-paleontologist dark-rimmed glasses. “Oh. My. God. You do! What’s the puppy’s name?”
He groaned. “Patton.”
“And what kind?”
Smug Thea was quite something to observe. This was a woman who, despite all evidence to the contrary in how she acted around other people, loved being right.
“French bulldog–corgi mix,” he grudgingly admitted.
“And what did the shelter say when you adopted him?”
She was enjoying this way too much. He wanted to hate that. He couldn’t.
“That he’d been returned three times for being an asshole.”
She let out a moan that sounded way too close to an awwwwwwww for him. “So you found a kindred soul.”
“You don’t know me.” At least she definitely shouldn’t know him. They’d spent what, two and a half days together?
“Really?” She teased the skin above his jeans’ waistband with her fingertips. “Sounds to me like you don’t really know yourself. God, I sound just like my therapist. I’m gonna get Nola and Astrid for this.”
“Is that your therapist?”
She shook her head. “Astrid and Nola are my best friends, and Nola got both of us to start seeing her therapist. Separately, of course.”
“What? Was she after the referral discounts, or pulling some kind of con?” He hadn’t heard of a therapy-related Ponzi scheme, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.
“You know”—her thumb brushed the button of his jeans—“they say cynics are often the biggest closet optimists.”
“Well, I’m in a closet right now, but that’s the only thing you got right there.”
She shrugged. “So you say.”
He encircled her wrists with his hand and lifted her arms above her head, pinning them to one of the shelves. “Wanna know what else I have to say?”
She bit down on her bottom lip and nodded.
He slipped his free hand under her ridiculous T. rex T-shirt and pushed it up over her tits. Her hard nipples pressed against the thin material of her cotton sports bra. Watching her face, he pinched her nipple through the soft material, rolling and tugging it as her eyes darkened with desire.
“Before this week is out,” he said, switching his attentions to her other nipple, “you’re going to beg me to break that dumb rule of yours and kiss you until you finally find something you like more than dinosaurs.”
“Impossible.”
“Why, because you think that no-kissing rule is important?” He dropped a line of kisses against her silky skin above the line of her sports bra, his cock so hard it ached.
She arched her back and tilted her chin, giving him more of her to kiss. “No, because the only thing I like more than dinosaurs are, God help me, Astrid, Nola, and my family.”
That gave him pause, and he looked up. “Even your sister?”
Before she could answer, the closet door swung open to reveal a very pissed-off Jackie with a very happy cameraperson behind her already hitting the zoom.
Sidestepping in front of Thea to block her from view, he turned and glared at the cameraperson, who wisely took a step back. The bride-to-be, however, didn’t even flinch.
“Can you two even try to keep your pants zipped for five fucking seconds?” she sputtered. “I mean really, you are surrounded by a bunch of gross old bones. What kind of sickos are you?”
“The kind,” Thea shot back as she squeezed past him in the narrow closet while shimmying her shirt down, “who is desperately trying to avoid you.”
