Page 58 of Still Yours
Embarrassment floods my body as he storms through the small crowd of cooking couples, staff,Chef Saint, and outside into the cool air with me hanging off him like his cave woman.
“Put me down, for fuck’s sake!” I cry.
His grip only tightens.
A moment of silence passes. Then he asks, “If I put you down, will you get in the car?”
I give a sharp shake of my head.
“That doesn’t bode well for you,” he warns.
“I doubt there’s room for me if you’re bringing me back to your Stone Age,” I retort.
He gives an audible exhale. “I told you not to bait me.”
I snort. As if my talking to another guy caused this. I’m a possession to Stone. An old trinket. A shiny toy he forgot about, then suddenly found again.
“I’m good, thanks. I’ll call an Uber.”
“You will not.”
“Iwill. Drive home without me.”
“I’m not leaving you out here in the cold.”
“Why not? If I get too frozen, I can always go back in and get Chef Saint to warm me.”
His answering growl sends shivers over my painfully curled spine. “Fuck this. I am not arguing with you on a street corner,” he grunts, moving again while my forehead nearly smacks against his ass.
“Put me down!” This time, I use my dangling arms to slap his rump. “This is humiliating, Stone! Haven’t you done enough of that?”
There’s a hitch in his long strides, then he resumes with more vigor. If he notices the cluster of townspeople out and about, pausing and muttering to each other as we pass, he doesn’t give a damn.
But I sure do.
“Stone!” I try again.
At last, he drops me to my feet by the passenger side of his car. He smoothly transitions from plopping me down to opening the door and commanding, “Get in.”
“N—”
After a brief eye roll, he shoves me into the car.
I wouldn’t call it an aggressive push, or even a mean one, but it sure is effective. He uses his chest to navigate me inside, his large hands wrapping around my sides to bend me at the waist. His thumbs are uncomfortably close to the undersides of my breasts. The down of my jacket should protect me from feeling anyzingsor tingles at his touch, but I might as well be naked as he firmly places me in his vehicle, his face inches from mine.
His breath smells like salt and wine, like the sauce we made together, the very one I licked off the spoon.
In an unwelcome flash, I suddenly want that spoon to be him.
I push at his shoulders, my heart rate increasing with excited pumps. “Get off me, Stone.”
“Gladly.” His brows overcast his eyes in a line of frustration as he pushes off and makes his way to the driver’s side.
I use the moment of being free from him to reluctantly pocket my phone. I’m positive if I tried to escape in an Uber, Stone would hunt me down and we’d give the townsfolk an encore.
Stone gets in with a slam of the door, starting the engine and merging into traffic without a word.
We spend the entire trip home in tense silence, our mutual anger coming off our body in electrical waves that prickle againstmy cheek. I sense his body next to mine like I would a wolf crouched in the underbrush awaiting his moment to pounce on the poor deer who just wanted to take a cooking class and be happy for a minute.
