Page 46 of Defiant
I let out an incredulous chuckle. “Oh, yeah? And what exactly happened, hmm? What do you think happened between Archer and me? You don’t know anything, Dante, because you’re—you’re…” Damn it, I didn’t know how to finish that sentence.
Not from Midpark? Not involved in any of this?
“Why are you still here? You don’t…” Well, I was going to say he didn’t belong here, but the same could be said of me. I didn’t belong in Midpark, either. Just look at how messed up things had become since I’d come here.
“I have nowhere else to be,” he said, grinning, though his grin looked a little hollow. Like there wasn’t much feeling behind it. He was unnerving, but for whatever reason, I didn’t feel like I was in danger with him.
That was probably stupid of me.
“That doesn’t mean you can follow me everywhere.”
Dante shrugged, saying, “Why not? I have nothing else to do.”
That was…not a real answer.
“And as for what happened between you and that fucker,” Dante paused, shoving his hands in his pockets as he closed the distance between us, “I know enough. I know he fucked you over at that party, and he didn’t care how he did it.” His eyes closed, and he shook his head. “What were you thinking, coming here with him?”
“I…” I honestly had no response to that. As I stared at Dante, something occurred to me. “Dante, you’re not jealous of Archer, are you?” He really had no reason to hate Archer so—he wasn’t from around here. He didn’t hear the gossip, hadn’t seen what he did to me. Yes, he fucked me over, but why did that automatically put him on Dante’s shit list?
Again, Dante acting like he and I knew each other, and we definitely didn’t. It was slightly aggravating.
“Jealous of that dickhead?” Dante scoffed, “Yeah, right.”
“Then why did you attack him?” Even if he was jealous, it was no excuse for what he just did to him. You didn’t attack someone when they were doing something you didn’t approve of. That’s not how normal people did things.
He shrugged, his shoulders rising and falling once. “I didn’t like seeing him with you.”
“I’m not your girlfriend. You don’t get to decide who I get close with.”
His blue gaze looked crazier and crazier by the minute, and he studied me with a pensive expression. “I can’t help how I feel, Jaz.”
I honestly did not know what to say to that. “Then let me tell you how you should feel.” Man, I felt awfully bold in the face of a guy who could break me with his pinky and cut me up into a thousand tiny pieces—he’d probably enjoy that, too. “You should feel nothing. You don’t know me. I don’t know you. Yes, you might be stalking me like some kind of crazy guy, but that’s it. You have no say in who I kiss, who touches me, who I touch—” I stopped when I watched a smile spread on his face.
God, he might be a little crazy, but he was a deadly kind of attractive. All square angles and muscles and leather. I even strangely dug the tattoo on his skull.
“You’re going to feel really stupid when you’re begging to be fucked in my bed.”
His crass statement made me blush—and then it made me annoyed. Who the hell was this guy to automatically assume I’d fall before his mighty dick and worship it like some kind of god?
I gave him a smile. It was tough to smile when I really wanted to punch that smirk right off his face. “You’re going to feel even stupider when you realize that I’m never going to beg you for anything.” I paused, tilting my head, the cold air whipping my hair all around. “If one of us is going to beg, actually, it’s going to be you.”
“And why do you think it’s going to be me?”
“You’re the one who’s obsessed with me.” Now it was my turn to state facts and twist them up a little. “If anyone’s going to beg to be fucked in a bed, it’s going to be you.”
He grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “I like you, Jaz.” That was all he said, and it made my stomach do something funny.
Had to be just a reaction from what I’d been doing with Archer not that long ago. Dante was a stranger to me. He certainly didn’t merit any sort of bodily reaction from me. Of course, I’d hooked up with Archer when he was basically a stranger, too, so him being a stranger did not give me the level of comfort it should’ve.
At that point, I had no idea what to say, so I settled for: “Just drive me home.” Good thing he was a stalker, otherwise I’d have no idea how to get back to the Fitzpatrick’s house.
I had him drop me off down the road, not wanting Frank to see me get off a bike—with a different guy than I left with. Yeah, the last thing I wanted was for my mom to be told I was dating multiple guys at once or something.
Like that would happen.
You know, the strangest thing out of everything that had happened today? It wasn’t me losing my willpower to Archer, nor Dante suddenly appearing and making his presence known. It was the fact that, as I strolled back into the house, my mom and Ollie were still in the kitchen, chitchatting.
They were talking about…vacations? Seemed a weird topic to be talking about, but hey, who was I to judge? Ollie had kept my mom busy while I gallivanted across town with Archer and Dante.
