I set the made drinks on the counter. “Megan!”
The girl’s belly button ring catches the fluorescent light as she makes her way back to the bar. “You mean Meegan?”
“Yeah, sorry.” I’m not sorry. I did it on purpose because I like to remind people that they’re forgettable.
“It’s cool.” She bounces one shoulder. “It happens.” She turns to walk away and I roll my eyes, but she surprises me when she turns quickly back around. “Do we have advanced econ together? Professor Barrons?”
I can’t confirm we have class together. I don’t make a habit of making friends in my classes, or eye contact.
She tilts her head. “You sit in the middle, behind the guy who always gets called out for falling asleep.” She wrinkles her nose. “He looks like Lurch from The Adam’s family.”
He does. I liked him instantly.
Her eyes light up. “I haven’t seen you on The Row.” Her gaze narrows. “What house are you?”
“House?”
She takes me in, from my ponytail wrapped in a cornflower-blue, silk scarf to my Bean Madness logoed shirt tucked into my pleated khaki pants. “You look like an Alpha girl, but you don’t strike me as a jock, so maybe Kai Omega or Gama but I know all their pledges, so…”
“A sorority.” Of course she’d assume I would be part of a cult where homogeneity rules and traditional gender roles are reinforced and based in hundreds year old tradition they’re resistant to change. No thanks.
“Yes. Oh…” Her expression falls. “Are you not?”
“No.”
Animation returns to her face in the form of excitement. “You should pledge Eta Pi!”
Ate a pie? That has to be joke. “I don’t think so.”
“We’re having a party Friday night. Just come and check it out.” She does another quick inspection of my face and I know exactly what she thinks she’s seeing. Rich, white, entitled…basic bitch. “We’re on the corner of Main and University. Big white house with EP on the front, you can’t miss it.” When I don’t immediately answer, she turns back to her study partner and finger waves to me over her shoulder with a, “See you there!”
No. You won’t.
The rest of the night passes fairly easily. Tuesday nights fill the shop with study groups and couples on a date. By nine o’clock the cafe empties and I lock the doors. I double check my list of closing procedures to ensure I didn’t miss anything, and then make the short, depressing trip home. At least working nights I’m guaranteed to avoid an awkward run-in with my dad.
I’m locking the door when I feel a presence behind me. A figure stands shrouded in a pocket of darkness between two overhead lights. Tall, broad shoulders, confident stance—if I were blindfolded I’d know his form by touch alone. A shiver races across my skin.
“Theodore.” His name is an inaudible exhale from my lips.
He tilts his head as if he heard me, which is impossible.
I cross toward him and boldly join him in the darkness. A girl with a cell of common sense would argue against being alone in the dark with a man as sadistic as Theodore Web. But I’m not like other girls. His cruelty excites me. His perversions thrill me and leave me tingling for days.
“Kitten.” The single word is a low vibration from his chest drenched in longing.
“What do you want?”
His black baseball hat shades his eyes and adds a boyish softness to the savage lines of his face. “Haven’t seen you around lately.”
I feel the corner of my mouth tick up and try desperately to hide it. “I’ve been around—”
“Don’t waste my time.”
I lift my chin. “But it’s okay for you to waste mine? You told me to leave you alone.”
His slow, sultry smile reveals a flash of white teeth. “Since when do you do what you’re told?”
I take a step back to test a theory and the way he sways in my direction as if he’s preparing to lunge confirms my assumption. “You want me to stalk you and bait you and show up at your house uninvited.”
He doesn’t deny it.
“If you want me, you’re going to have to come and get me.”
“I don’t like playing games.” The predatory glint in his eyes contradicts him.
“You’re lying.” I take another step back and his jaw flexes. Knowing a hunter could never resist the drive to chase his prey, I walk away.
Three steps and his hand wraps around the front of my neck. Rather than pull me back he steps close, presses the muscled wall of his chest and abs against me. His fingers flex on my throat unleashing a wave of tingles in my belly. His lips find my ear. “I don’t like you.” His quickly hardening erection is pinned at my lower back in blatant disagreement.
“I find that hard to believe.” I want to laugh in victory at the way his fingers quake against my throat as if he’s resisting the urge to take what he so desperately wants.
He bites the shell of my ear and growls. “If you walk away from me again, I won’t come after you.”
A full-body shiver slides through him and he releases me with a gentle push.
Theodore isn’t like the boys I’m used to. He doesn’t touch me like I might break, try to flatter me with compliments or shower me with gifts. He’s callus, cold, and calculating. I haven’t felt anything in so long, yet his presence alone brings warmth to my cold, dead heart.
And here he is, challenging me to turn around and admit that I want him. That I may even need him.
I straighten my shoulders and walk away.
True to his word, he doesn’t come after me.
Chapter
