Page 73 of Grease Monkey
No, don’t go.
My hand darts out before I can stop it, latching onto his wrist and tugging him back. He rounds on me so fast, my chin in his grip, squeezing to the point of pain. My eyes widen, and my breath hitches.Oh God, this hurts so good.I watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows, and I suddenly want to trace my tongue along it.
You’re engaged, Morgana.
I swallow, and his fingers move in time with the muscles under my jaw.
“I really am here for work,” I say hoarsely, and he drops his hold but not his eyes. They remain focused on where his fingers held me tight, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d left marks. Teddy always was strong. I itch to step forward. For some reason, I want to make him believe me that I’m not here to cause trouble when I really shouldn’t care if he’s mad I’m here. It’s not like we’re together, we’re barely even friends. But his glare directed at me is worse than anything I could ever imagine. “I promise I’m not here for anything else. Just auditing a new client for a couple of months, and then I’ll be gone.”
“Auditing?”
“Yeah, I’m an accountant.”
His eyes narrow. “So, no law school?”
I shake my head, fighting a smile as I say, “No, I went to business school after all.”
Reaching up, I brush back wayward strands that fell from my ponytail and something glints in Teddy’s eyes as they snag on my engagement ring. He half-laughs, half-huffs as he steps back, leaving a chill in its place and shakes his head.
“Well, looks like you got everything you ever wanted, huh, Morgana?”
I want to shout—scream—that I didn’t get everything.That the only thing I truly ever wanted is walking out my door. But I’m glued, stuck to the floor, only able to watch as he approaches the door and throws it open.
He doesn’t meet my eyes when he turns over his shoulder and says, “Your car will be ready in a few days. I’ll let you know when you can come by and get it.”
“I thought Ozzy was working on it?”
“You thought wrong, sweetheart.” The endearment isn’t nice as his lip curls around the word. “You’re dealing with me now.”
As the door clicks shut, relief so thick it makes my stomach bottom out, and exhaustion hits me hard. Less than twenty-four hours, and Teddy’s back in my orbit, flying dangerously close that I’m not sure I can survive his gravitational pull for the second time.
My feet scramble against the floor as I race across the small space, and grab my handbag, digging around in it until I find my cell. My fingers shake as I unlock it and pull up Shay’s contact.
“Why, hello there,” she sings. “How was the first day of being a boss-ass bitch?”
“Teddy’s here.”
Silence.
I pull the phone away from my ear and check that we are still connected.
“Shay, did you hear me?”
“Um, yeah. When you sayhere,do you mean in your apartment? Phoenix?”
“Phoenix? The apartment? B—Both?”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. Fuck. And he’s the one fixing my car.”
“Wow. Talk about fate, huh.”
“More like bad luck.”
“How is he?”
“What do you mean,how is he?” I ask, digging my nails into my scalp, my fingers getting caught in the hair tie in frustration. “I don’t know. We didn’t exactly have a friendly catch-up likehey, how you doing? What’s been going on since I saw you last? You know, in that restaurant where you took off like your ass was on fire, and I never saw you again?”
