Page 19 of Vinter
He planted his hands on the edge of the bar and leaned toward her until he could smell the beer on her breath. “Because you don’t me. You don’t know who I am and you don’t know what fire you’re playing with.”
She licked her lips. “Who … Who are you?”
No sense lying about it or anything else now. “The devil himself.” At least that’s what his father told him every time they were in the same room together.
“Now who’s lying.”
And there it was. Even if he could protect her, she didn’t want protection from him. “You asked directions to the college earlier.”
“They offered me a job a few weeks ago in their financial aid department. A favor to my father who’s an alumnus. Why? What does that have to do with anything?”
“The dean is my father. He’s also the pastor of the big downtown Baptist church here.”
“Oh. Does he know you work in a bar?”
“Do your parents know you’re in a bar drinking beer?”
She blushed and Dallon’s jeans tightened that much more. Pretty soon he wouldn’t be to take a step without wincing.
“That’s what I thought. You don’t need to be messing with me, Carrie. If ever there was a black sheep, I’m it. My reputation is very, very bad, and it's best that you go. Now.”
She lowered her gaze and he thought he’d gotten through to her. He hadn’t said much, but he hoped it was enough. When she looked back up at him, he knew he was in deep trouble by the sheen of tears. She took a shaky breath before she spoke again.
“I quit my job.”
She said it so softly that he wasn’t sure he’d heard right, but the determined set of her jaw told him he had. “Before you even started? Why?”
She blinked to keep the tears from falling. “I want something in my life that is all mine, that no one else has a say in. I’ve never had that kind of freedom and now that I’m out on my own, out from under my parents’ thumbs, I want it.”
Don’t ask, man. Please for the love of all that is twisted and dirty, don’t fucking ask. “That’s all you want? Freedom? You’re on your own. Freedom is what you’ve got. To do and be whoever you want. Having a job helps with that.”
“You don’t understand.”
But he was afraid he did. And if he asked one more question, uttered one more phrase, FedEx was going to bust through the doors. They’d package his ass up, deliver him straight to Hell by ten tomorrow morning. Guaranteed. “What else do you want?”
“You.”
His dick throbbed at the word. “I’m not the kind of guy you need. I don’t do good girls,” which was a huge lie, “and you are one. I don’t do tears either. Unless of course they’re the kind that come from me spanking the shit out of you. Or … The kind that come from you begging me to stop fucking your ass so hard. But those tears you have right now? Nope. I don’t do those tears.”
As he spoke, shock widened her eyes, her mouth formed a little “O”, and her cheeks turned a delectable shade of dark pink. She curled her fingers under, then flattened them out on the bar, pressing down until the tips were white. Had that finally gotten through to her? Had he finally said the right thing to get her to leave?
“Well, okay.”
Her body relaxed, and she dropped her hands and her gaze to her lap. Yes, she got it. Dallon breathed a sigh of frustrated relief and ignored the pinch of disappointment. He wasn’t right for her. She was too clean for him.
He almost had himself convinced, but then she spoke. It was hard to hear her at first, but as she continued, her voice grew louder with anger.
“It’s not up to you to decide what kind of guy I need. If you don’t want me, if I’m not the kind of woman that you … that you ‘do’, that’s one thing …” Her gaze clashed with his. She was full of fire and when the light hit those dark brown irises of hers … Fuck.
“… But don’t tell me what I do and don’t need. I’ve had enough of that in my life. I can make my own choices, my own decisions.”
Dallon smiled. His little innocent had spunk. He should’ve known better. The good girls always did.
“Look, I get it. I’ve been there. I’m trying to keep a promise and I’m trying to do the right thing. Not for me, but for you.”
“I don’t need you to do the right thing for me. I’m a big girl.”
That she was. All grown up and his for the taking.
