Her eyes welled up. "I'm sure one of your bros will be more than happy to give you a ride somewhere. Also, fuck you for thinking I believe the world revolves around me. I think it's pretty clear I don't think that. Now, excuse me, I have to be going." She took a step beyond where he stood, unable to put distance between herself and Dash fast enough.
Unexpectedly, he insisted, "Don't go that way."
She turned back to him. "Fuck you; I'll go wherever I want."
Growling, he came at her, and to her extreme dismay, he picked her up. He just picked her up as if he had the right to do it and began walking in the opposite direction from where she needed to go. "If you won't listen to me, then I'll force you to listen."
"Put me down."
"No."
"This is kidnapping. I will call the fucking FBI."
Dash laughed. "They're busy. That's why I have to take it upon myself to sort your ass out."
She snarled and hammered his chest with her fist. "Put me down!"
"Fine!" Dash set Harper down in front of Pawny Express.
"What is it with you Fitzgeralds? Boy, you know how to stick with a grudge."
Dash blinked at her. "This isn't about a grudge."
"It's not? You have a little mantrum every time you see my face."
He appeared genuinely confused. "What's a mantrum?"
Harper chucked. "I'll let you figure that one out on your own. I have to get back to the office to edit my story."
"That's not where your car is parked," he pointed out.
"How do you know where my car is parked?"
Dash shifted his eyes around, then said weakly, "Because…if you drove to that escape room place from the office, you most likely parked it up on the nearest public parking lot, which is Haven Street, which means you're going the wrong way."
Harper narrowed her eyes at him. "Good guess. Too bad you could not apply those deduction skills in the escape room."
"Wow."
"Wow yourself," she mocked.
Dash glared down at her, and then it happened again. He leaned in for a kiss.
This time, though, Harper did not reciprocate the kiss and backed away abruptly. Outraged, she thumped him on the chest with the pinky side of her closed fist, like a hammer. Flushed, she looks around.
"You need to stop."
"OK."
"I mean it. And don't even think about telling your boys about this. As far as the Brute Squad is concerned, that never happened."
"What never happened?"
"The, you know, kiss. From before."
"Oh," he said with a cocky grin. "You thought that was worth repeating to my friends? Sweetheart, if I'm gonna kiss and tell, it ain't gonna be about a kiss like that. When you get thoroughly kissed by Dash Fitzgerald, you'll be feeling it so hard in all the right places, you'll be writing that into the newspaper."
She swallowed. "Right…places?" Why was she asking that, and why did she even care about the answer?
He stepped toward her, although there was nowhere for him to go as she stood her ground. The net effect of this was his pelvis pressed against her stomach. His hard cock could not be ignored. But she would try.
Before she thought about how to respond, she walloped him on the chest again.
"Ow," he said with a laugh.
"Not a real kiss, huh? Talk about thinking you're the center of the universe. Fuck you. I'm sorry I'm so repulsive to you, and you hate me that much because of some stupid feud from 80 fucking years ago."
"What? What…happened 80 fucking years ago? Why do you keep bringing up some feud?"
"Horace Ross? The whiskey recipe? Hello!?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
Harper waved her hands in front of her face because her brain was malfunctioning due to shock.
"Are you telling me that your dad and mom never told you about Fitzross Whiskey?"
Dash looked at her for a second like he was mulling over that name, then let out a barking laugh. "Fitzross! That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Is that our names combined? Did you write that in your super-secret diary?"
Harper bit back the instinct to gasp in offense. Instead, she thumped him on the chest one more time. "Ow! Hey, that one hurt."
"Go ask your mom about Fitzross! Or, I don't know, have a conversation with your mother about something other than yourself! Be a grown-ass man! Ugh!"
Harper walked away in a huff once more. How many times a day could she do that? How many times in her life had she flounced away from Dash Fitzgerald?
More times than her body wanted to if she were honest with herself.
Well, now she had to evict that tall, hard man not only from her mind but also from her libido. Now that he had awakened something else within her besides supreme annoyance, she was doubly annoyed.
She practically marched down the street as she made her way to her car. Soon, the cold wind began to knock the indignance out of her, and she found herself talking out loud as she walked. The talking helped her rationalize what had happened with Dash and also took her mind off the cold. "Random kisses just happen sometimes, don't they? Especially when emotions are running high. It doesn't help that he waltzes around in that blue shirt that matches his eyes and leaves it unbuttoned down to the middle of his chest as if I want to see his muscles. Who cares about his muscles? I don't."
A couple was out walking their dog on the sidewalk, pausing by a hydrant. All three stared at Harper as she passed, continuing to talk out loud to herself. She didn't care. "There's nothing wrong with being sexually attracted to the wrong person. You just don't want to act on it. What you need is a good solid orgasm. Good for what ails you, and what ails you right now is a sneaky, tall, glowering jerkface
