Page 15 of Wolf Cursed
Ugh.
I’d dealt with guys like him before. The diners were full of them, especially late at night. They were always cocky and entitled, acting like the world revolved around their wishes. I’d learned a long time ago that backing down only made it worse.
He finally looked up, and when his dark eyes landed on my face, he tensed.
“What’s the matter? My makeup job not believable enough for you today?”
For a long moment, he didn’t answer. Instead, he simply stared, his eyes running over my body in a way that felt almost intimate. Like he was seeing every part of me, even the ones I didn’t want to show him. Even in my borrowed oversized sweats, I felt naked before him.
I shuddered, and his gaze flicked back up to mine. Something flashed in his eyes. A darkness that bore the same hint of murder I’d seen in Vorack just before he’d fired the gun.
Fear coiled in my gut, and I took a step back.
He blinked and looked away.
“Aspirin’s in the cabinet on your right,” he said flatly.
I walked over and opened the cabinet, swiping the bottle of painkillers with a sigh of relief. By the time I turned around again, Kai was setting a bottle of water on the counter beside me.
I took two pills and chased them with water.
Kai went back to reading over his spreadsheet, and the silence stretched until it felt awkward. I was just about to turn and head back upstairs when he spoke.
“I hope whoever did that to you got what they deserved.”
Wait. Was he actually being nice?
I hid my surprise with sarcasm. “You sound almost like you feel sorry for me.”
He glared, which seemed to be his permanent expression—at least, when I was around. But I couldn’t help goading him. He’d been a dick this entire time, and now he wanted to show empathy? I wasn’t in the mood. Probably because my head was pounding like a high school marching band. Also, for some reason, fighting with Kai helped keep the grief at bay. Anger was so much easier to feel than heartache.
“You look like shit,” he shot back. “And if whoever did that comes here, looking to do it again, I don’t want to clean up your blood off my floor.”
“Isn’t it Oscar’s floor?”
He dropped the spreadsheet and walked up to me, closing the distance so fast I didn’t have time to think before my back hit the wall and Kai was towering over me, invading my space.
His scent hit me.
Pine, like the forest. I hated that whatever soap he used made me kind of want to lick him. It was probably called “sexy woodsman asshole” or something.
I swallowed hard as he leaned in, his expression definitely more the ‘asshole’ part of that scent right now.
“Listen to me because I’m only going to say this once,” he said in a quiet voice that was somehow worse than if he’d yelled. “You don’t belong here. You don’t know me, and you sure as hell don’t know Oscar, so don’t pretend to understand his business—”
He stopped short, his nostrils flaring and his eyes darkening to something like a thunderstorm. Lightning flashed—pure, raw rage—and then his expression shuttered and went blank.
“What are you?” he demanded in a quiet voice that raked over every nerve ending I had.
“Excuse me?” I asked, breathless and more turned on than I’d ever been in my life. It didn’t matter that he was rude. Or hostile. Or invading my personal space for the sole reason of intimidating me.
I couldn’t think straight, and even if I could, my body responded to him in ways I kind of wanted to slap myself over.
“Ugh. Forget it. This is insane.” He stepped back, shoulders lowered. I didn’t miss the way his hands had fisted at his sides, but other than that, he was completely devoid of the anger that had just driven him to corner me here.
With a little space between us, my breath whooshed out of me. Instead of the relief I should have felt, disappointment speared through me. And on its heels, the grief crashed in around me again. My lip trembled and I bit it to hide my display of emotion.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I mumbled, still trying to understand what the hell he meant.
