Page 79 of Takedown

I start to pant as if I just ran a marathon. In all this time, I’ve only seen him with one woman. I wanted to hurt her too until I found out she was his cousin.

“What are we doing, Mel?” he asks.

“How does it feel, hm? How does it feel to have someone act like they own you?” I cross my arms and wait for him to answer.

“It feels great, but only because it’s you.” Just as I’m getting my thoughts together, another blonde walks up to him and smiles. He smiles back, but not for long because I step between them and say, “Back off.” She huffs and eye fucks him one more time before she slithers away.

“I should have known you’d like blondes.”

He shakes his head sadly and says, “You should know better than that, Mel. I want you. I’ve made that obvious. The difference is when I chase a man away from you, I’ve made it clear that I want to be your man. What are you going to do now? It’s your move.”

“Hey, handsome.” This time it’s a long-legged brunette who has the audacity to slide her arm across his torso.

“Hey, gorg—” before the word is out of his mouth, I tell her to move along. Adam’s eyes light up in mischief, and that just fuels my irritation. I wrap my hand around his wrist and drag him under the awning of the casino and pin him to the wall. He stands there, staring into my eyes. He flashes me that crooked smile, and his blue eyes practically sparkle. I get a vision of him smiling like that for another woman, and a boiling rage like I’ve never felt before consumes me.

The day will come when he’ll lose interest and move on to someone else. Someone who will willingly be with him. The very idea makes me want to stand in the middle of the sidewalk and scream like a raving lunatic. His smile turns into a smirk, almost as if he’s privy to these very thoughts.

“Shut up, Flynn.” He arches his eyebrows and opens his mouth to speak, but I don’t give him a chance. I step closer and press my body to his. His eyes widen in shock. Without giving it another thought, I get on my tippy toes and take those firm lips into a toe-curling kiss right there on the public street.

His massive arms wrap around me instantly, and he lifts me off my feet. This is just like our New Year’s Eve kiss, and I ask myself why it’s taken me this long to taste his lips again.

I slide my fingers into his thick hair and lose myself in the taste and smell of him. His scent invades my senses, nearly driving me wild with lust and something else. Possession. There is no way I would be able to handle it if he looked at someone else the way he looks at me. I forget where I am and start to wrap my legs around him, but he puts me down.

“Let’s go to my room,” he says, his voice hoarse. I look down and see the bulge in his pants and can’t help but lick my lips. A night in his room won’t stop him from kissing or touching another woman the way he just did with me.

“That won’t be enough.” I start to pant. I put both hands on my knees while I do my best to gather my thoughts, but that does nothing to calm the erratic beating of my heart.

“Wait until you see it, love. I promise it will be enough.” He runs a hand down the curve of my body and cups my ass. The feel of his hands belongs to me. The kisses we shared are mine. I’d die if he gives what belongs to me to someone else.

“That’s not what I mean. Fucking you won’t be enough. I should drag your ass to a chapel and marry you. Maybe that’s what it will take, because I swear to God, if you ever look at or touch another woman...” I leave the thought unfinished. Saying the words out loud would only make me angrier, and I need control right now.

“Is that what you’ve come up with? I don’t think you have the guts to do it.”

“I warned you on New Year’s Eve not to put ideas in my head, so don’t push me, Adam. Hush. I’m trying to figure out what to do with you.” I run a hand through my hair. And because there’s a group of girls walking toward us, I grab his hand and intertwine our fingers.

“I should marry you,” I threaten. “That way when these casino cunts come near you, you’ll have no choice but to tell them you’re taken.”

“I’m not taken, but all you have to do is ask me, love.”

“Ask you what?”

“Ask me to be your husband.”

“Why should I have to ask you?”

“Because I don’t want you to wake up tomorrow and say I tricked you.” I do a dramatic eye roll.

“I’m a liberated woman, Adam. A feminist. No one, man or woman, can trick me into doing anything. I do what I want. And I do it when I want. This ain’t the nineteen fifties, love.” I say love with the worst Irish brogue in the history of the world.

“Liberated women happen to be my favorite kind, love. As a liberated woman, ask me to marry you. Hell, tell me to do it. But you should know one thing, Mel. If we do this, I’m not going to let you go. There’s nowhere on this earth you can run. I’ll always find you and bring you back to me.”

“What makes you think I’d run?”

“Just a feeling.”

I put a hand on his broad chest and push, but he doesn’t budge. In fact, he flexes underneath my hand.

“Adam, you would let me go. You’ll finally get what you want, and you’d get bored. I’m not that special.”

---