Page 74 of Driftwood Daffodil 2

She didn’t look so fucking smug now.

“Run,” I repeated. “Run now and run fast.”

It wasn’t a threat, it was a warning. Novalee didn’t know what the meaning of pain was, but she was about to find out.

With one frantic twist, Nova whipped around, causing her hazelnut hair to flutter behind her. I watched her leg lift, knee bent to sprint away as adrenaline surged through my system. A game of hunter and prey was exactly what I needed to burn off some of this anger. Otherwise, I’d snap her neck, which was against my father’s rules for our agreement.

I prepared to give chase as Nova ran front first into her truck. She was too busy looking over her shoulder at me to see it parked there. A loud bang rang through the air as her ribs met the side of the hood and she was pushed back roughly onto the pavement behind her.

I wanted to shake my head when she smacked down with an oof and gargled groan. How hopeless was she?

“Son of a bitch.” She coughed and curled in on herself. “That hurt.”

I bet it did.

Arching a brow down at her I let out a sigh. “What the fuck was that?”

She literally knocked the wind out of herself.

Nova rolled her head along the ground to look up at me, and sucked in a strangled breath. “I regret the muffin.”

A fucking muffin was the last thing she should be regretting.

“Get up.”

A finger in the air. “Give me a minute.”

I wasn’t giving her shit.

“You have till to the count of ten.”

“I’m gonna need more than that.”

Too bad. “One.”

Letting out a loud groan, Nova flopped onto her back and fluttered her eyes up at me. “Really?”

“Two,” was the only answer she was getting.

“A little leeway would be nice.”

I was not the leeway type. “Three.”

“Ugh, fine.” She grumbled as I counted the next number.

By the time I got to six she’d pushed herself up to sit. I continued to count as I watched Nova shuffle her feet under her and slowly pull herself up. She made of show of it, muttering complaints, while acting like she was dying. But when I counted the last number, she was standing on her feet as I instructed.

So she can obey after all. She just choses to piss me off.

“Happy?” she spat out while shooting me a dirty look.

Not in the slightest, but I would be less pissed off after I beat her ass black and blue.

“Do I look fucking happy to you?”

“I can’t really tell. It’s hard to see through the searing pain shooting up my tailbone.”

“Go whine to someone who gives a –” My eyes dropped down to a red trickle running down her leg from a small scrape just above her knee. “You’re bleeding?”

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