Page 49 of Dealing Dirty
“I believe you’re looking for someone?” he says, a bit too relaxed for my liking.
“What did you do.” It’s not a question but an accusation. There can be nothing decent about this slimy sea urchin if he’s been working with a prick like Bruce for all these years.
Juliana bumps her shoulder and he releases her. Jealously burns hot under my skin, blurring spots over my vision when he feasts his eyes on her body like a glutton.
She tugs on my arm, dismissing me. “Let’s get out of here.”
I refuse to move. My feet become cemented to the ground as I wonder what’s happened between these two.
Juliana is annoyed rather than afraid, and I can’t make heads or tails of it.
Glancing between them, I almost miss the smudge of her dark lipstick. I cup her cheek, turning her face up to mine. But before she can fully tug her hair over the side of her neck, I see a thick, angry line puckering just above her collarbone.
The blood in my face drains, and I’m amazed by the cold, lethal composure of my voice when I slowly turn my eyes on him. “I’ll kill you.”
Jackie’s smugness wavers with a twitch, but my protectiveness seems to entice him.
I’ve never wanted to fulfill a promise more.
Juliana whispers a curse from beside me, but I don’t dare break eye contact. No matter what I have to do, this man is going to pay for hurting her.
He slides his hands into the front pockets of his suit, smiling at the floor as he takes two careful steps my way. Silver eyes close in on mine until our noses nearly touch.
“Don’t threaten me, boy.” His drawl is thicker than mine as the whisper of his warning slides around my neck like a noose. “You won’t like what I’ll have to do to you. And I bet our sweet Juliana won’t either.”
She’sournothing. Over my dead body will he ever lay another finger on her.
The surge of coursing adrenaline borders on making me sick, but it’s Juliana’s soft voice that pierces the fury in my mind. At some point, she placed her hand in mine, and though light, the weight of it anchors me.
“Y’all run along now before I change my mind.” Like a wolf marking his territory, he winks at Juliana. “We’ll chat again real soon.”
Chapter Fifteen
Juliana
The cold night air stings my burning cheeks as we exit the old gas station. Derrick hasn’t uttered a single word to me since our encounter with Jackie, but my conversation with him in the conference room stays fresh in my mind.
All this time, I thought he was just another heartless bastard. I’m not counting him out just yet, but I saw a familiar spark in the depths of his soul back there that makes me think there’s more to Jackie Williams than he lets on.
I roll my neck forward and back, rubbing the spot that is sure to be bruised tomorrow. My bottom lip rolls between my teeth. Well, he’s not totally innocent; hewasgoing to kill me.
Derrick stops abruptly when we’re a few feet from his truck. The muscles in his neck flex with each careful inhale. Oh man, he’s really pissed. He tugs the beanie he was wearing off his head, letting loose his wild straw-colored hair.
“Where’s Sasha? Is she okay?” I ask quietly from behind him. The wind plays with my hair, blocking him from sight, but I quickly tuck the unruly strands behind my ears. It’s deathly silent in the barren parking lot, save for the rustle of dead leaves and the sound of our voices.
“She left shortly after I spoke with her.”
“Look, uh. What happened back there—”
The crunch of his boots through dead foliage cuts me short. He closes the distance between us, and butterflies tickle my stomach when his coffee-brown eyes snare on my lips. Lips that—against my will—were kissed by a man who is supposed to be our enemy.
A silent void cracks between us, but here I am, undressing him with my eyes.
Jackie’s lips against mine felt all wrong. He’s a handsome man, even with his twenty years on me. At one point in time, those bulging biceps would have had me panting ‘Do me, Daddy,’ but it didn’tfeelright. It was sparkless and lacked the spontaneity that revs my engine the way a solitary touch from the man before me can.
“You were saying?”
Not appreciating his tone, I cross my arms, blocking myself off. “Jackie found me when you went to warn Sasha. He thought I was her, and—no big deal or anything—basically tried to kill me.”
