Page 49 of Anger Bang
“I’m glad I could help.” An embarrassed flush burned her cheeks, but she forced herself not to drop her gaze to his feet. “I like helping you.”
Whoa, girl. What are you doing, telling the truth? Might as well start doodling his name on every possible writing surface like you’re in middle school all over again.
“That’s kind of what we’ve got going here, right?” He grinned at her as he took a step back, breaking contact. “You help me. I help you. We both survive this wedding from hell.”
Her chest was too tight all of a sudden. They had rules. They had a time limit. This was not about building a bond. This was anarrangement.
“Oh yeah,” she said, her tone too loudly jovial, too yes-please-pick-me-please, too fast-talking frenzied—but she couldn’t help herself. “That’s exactly it. Just two buddies doing each other a solid.”
She slammed her mouth shut before any more inanities could come out.
Buddies?
Doing each other a solid?
What the fuck, Thea? You have a PhD. You can talk without sounding like a fool.
And that was before she registered the fact that her voice had gone up in pitch, and she couldn’t get the uncomfortably big maybe-she’s-a-stalker smile off her face.
One side of Kade’s mouth kicked up in an indulgent half smile. “Are you about to fight me, run away, agree with me, or freeze?”
Considering she had so much adrenaline running through her veins at the moment that it felt like she just might start levitating, there was only one thing she could say to that. “All of the above.”
“Yeah, sometimes really amazing sex will do that to a person,” he said, his voice low and intense.
She flinched, imagining all the other women he’d been with who’d made him feel like that. “You speak from experience?”
Why did the idea of him being with other people make her gut churn? This wasn’t a relationship. It was just temporary fun.
“Yeah.” He stepped in close, looking down at her with an intensity that made her breath catch. “Happened to me for the first time a couple of minutes ago.”
Breathing was no longer something her body did automatically, because all she could do was stare while two words screamed through her head.
Holy shit.
Holy. Shit.
HOLY SHIT!
Her heart was going just-downed-a-dozen-iced-coffees fast, and she probably could have powered a small city with the amount of nervous energy coursing through her. What was she supposed to say tothat?
“So lunch with your brother went bad?” she asked, the absolute worst words (besidesI could totally fall in love with you, let’s go have babies and name them after dinosaurs) coming out in a panicked rush.
Kade stilled, his gaze sharpening as he scanned her face. Her stomach flopped. Yeah, it didn’t take a genius to realize that had been the very wrong thing to say, not just after he’d saidthatto her but in general.
“That’s putting it mildly,” he said as he took a step back, getting as much distance between them as possible, given the equipment shed was the size of a large walk-in closet.
She grimaced, cringing all the way down to the marrow in her tiny toe bones.Way to go, Thea.
“Dex set me up,” Kade said, the muscles in his jaw flexing as he crossed his arms as if he needed a shield. “My mom was there.”
“Oh.” Without thinking of what she was doing, she walked over to him and reached out and laid her hand on his forearm, stopping herself—barely—from wrapping her arms around him and holding him tight. “And it went badly?”
The expression on his face darkened as he ground his molars together. Tension made the air electric, marching across her skin like a line of ants and making her shiver in a very not good way. She was about to tell him to ignore her question. It wasn’t her business. But before she could, he shoved his fingers through his hair, making it stand up on end so it went every which way.
“She wants a second chance. For what, I have no fucking clue. Didn’t she fuck me up enough the first time?” He winced and locked her into place with the plea in his eyes. “Forget I said that. I didn’t mean it.”
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. Acting on instinct and the way the hurt in his eyes made her want to fight the world on his behalf, she gave in a little and wrapped her arms around him from the side. His body tensed for a breath before relaxing against her.
