Page 22 of Becoming His Pet

Safely in the living room, she sat on the couch and swiped her finger over the screen. Password protected.

Tapping her fingernail on the edge of the phone, she stared into the light, urging the password to show itself. It wasn’t a number system, but a swiper. She needed to connect the dots in the right order to open the phone.

Maybe it was something simple. She swiped diagonally up, then tried going down from corner to corner. Nothing.

How many tries did it take before the phone locked? She’d already made three attempts, if the next one was wrong and she locked it, he’d know she’d been trying to use it.

Not that she was afraid of him. She had every right to get ahold of Bernie and let him know what was going on. Every right.

“Do you always tsk your tongue while you’re thinking?” His dark voice penetrated her concentration.

Her fingers curled tighter around the phone and she hugged it protectively to her chest.

He shuffled around the couch and put his hand out, probably expecting her to just hand it over. She probably should. It was his phone after all.

But she didn’t.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.” She put on her sweet voice.

“You didn’t. I’ve been awake for the past hour waiting for you to stop fidgeting in bed and fall asleep.”

She glanced up at him, choosing to ignore the fact that he was standing there in his damn boxers. Just his underwear. He couldn’t take a second and throw on a shirt to hide all those muscles, and the damn tattoos covering his chest?

“You were sound asleep,” she countered, pulling her feet from the floor and tucking them under her butt when he stepped closer.

“Okay.” He shrugged. “I’m not arguing about it; give me the phone, Nora.” He didn’t reach for it, though she was pretty damn sure he could just snag it whenever he wanted.

“Why don’t you want me to use it? What am I going to do? Call the Santinelli brothers and let them know where to find me?” Seriously, given the fact he knew very little of the actual events, how could he jump to such silly conclusions.

He sighed, a heavy, deep sound expressing his exasperation with the subject. She got the idea he wasn’t used to being questioned, at least not as much as she’d been doing since they’d met.

“I mean, c’mon, see this from my side.” Maybe a new approach would work better with him. “I don’t really know you, and you’re keeping me from calling someone that I do know, that I do trust, to let them know what’s going on, what happened. How can I not be at least a little skeptical of you?” All true points, but none of them really caused her any sense of alarm. She was safe with Greg. At least for the moment.

He dropped his hand and sat on the coffee table, leaning toward her.

“And see this from my side. I don’t know this person you want to call so badly. I don’t know exactly what you were doing in the flower shop. What journalist, who isn’t really a journalist, would take an undercover job working for someone who you admitted yourself didn’t have any big stake in the Santinelli family business.” He put his hands on her knees, keeping her in place as he moved further into her space. “Until I know more, you aren’t tipping anyone off to where you are. Once I get some answers tomorrow, I’ll decide what happens next.”

His fingers gripped the phone, snagging it out of her hand while she was still processing his words.

“You’ll decide? I didn’t ask you to take me from the flower shop. In fact, I told you to leave me there. I’ve done nothing but ask you to let me go, but you’ll decide what happens next, you’ll decide if you can trust me?” She bounded up from the couch, smacking him in the chin with her flailing hands. “I don’t give a shit if you trust me. I don’t need you. I didn’t ask for your help. I don’t want it.”

Running out of things to say, and keenly aware of the glare he set on her, she gritted her teeth and stalked toward the bedroom.

“Sleep on the fucking couch!” she yelled and slammed the door. With her heart racing, she jumped onto the bed and yanked the covers over her legs.

He was an arrogant asshole. Just like most of the other men in her life.

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