Page 89 of Wolf.e
I muster the energy to fight back the tears and rage at the thought of him just dismissing my request.
I push my plate aside. I know I’m acting childish, using my rejection of this beautiful meal he’s made, but I need him tolisten. I need his attention. Hole a woman up in a house for almost a month and see how childish she can become.
“I’m not hungry, thank you,” I say politely, shrugging my shoulders.
He stands over me for a few seconds, watching. I can feel his eyes roaming over me as I check my nails as if they’re of the utmost importance. He moves to the other side of the table and sits.
“You’re acting like a little brat, Brinley, and you’ll eat what I took the time to prepare you.”
A simmering fury takes over and I raise my eyes to him. He meets them and we sit, dead locked while he waits for my response. I feel the tears in my eyes, the anger of this entire situation brimming to the surface.
“And if I tell you Iamgoing to the rally? I have my own car. What will you do? Send me to my room? Ground me?Oh, wait”—I let out a haughty laugh—“I’m already grounded.Permanently.”
Gabriel’s fist hits the table with a thud and I jump.
“Enough,” he says as he picks up a forkful of food and eats. As threatening as he looks right now shirtless at the table, I stay as strong as I can, if for no other reason than to get my point across. He can keep me, but he can’t own me unless I let him.
Leaning back in my chair, I fold my hands in my lap and wait. My stomach growls and I hope he doesn’t hear it.
“Say you’ll take me with you and I’ll eat every bite,” I demand, trying my best to sound bold.
He pops another bite between his plush lips. I eye him as he does. Those lips might be my demise. So full and perfect looking against the square, strong angles of his jaw, he’s too gorgeous. I don’t know how I didn’t see the depth of his beauty the first time I laid eyes on him.
“You won’t get very far with blackmailing me, little hummingbird.”
“We’ll see,” I say curtly, like I would’ve before I met him.
Gabriel isn’t used to people standing up to him and that’s fine, but I want this. After being around him, I want to knowmoreof him. More of his life. What drives him, which is why I’m so adamant about going to this rally. I need it and I won’t let him push me around on it.
Gabriel takes another bite, chewing slowly and analyzing me. The longer I wait for him to finish eating, the more nervous I get. It’s like I can feel him calculating how he’s going to handle me orpunish me.
I feel his eyes on me as I start to lose confidence, fidgeting with the hem on my tank. I clear my throat and straighten up, resting my palms in my lap.
He doesn’t speak, just continues eating, watching my posture, watching my nerves build under his stare. By the time his plate is clean my hands are sweaty, not knowing what he’ll do. Gabriel’s eyes never leave mine as he takes a long drink of his own tequila.
Finally, when I’m just about to crumble under the weight of his stare he stands and makes his way over to the kitchen. He pulls a roll of heavy twine out of the drawer. My heart rate instantly starts to increase as he starts to unravel a hefty length and cuts it.
He calmly puts the roll back in the drawer and begins to stalk toward me.
“When I was young, I fought for every morsel of healthy food I could put into my body,” Gabriel says as he gets closer.
“My mother tried to prepare good meals, but it was always hard to do when my father drank, snorted or shot up every penny we had.”
I breathe in a slow shallow pant as Gabriel moves directly behind my chair, sets the twine in front of me and swipes my hair off my neck, bending down to kiss my shoulder—once, then twice. He breathes in my freshly showered scent, his nose pressing into my skin, then slides his hands down both my arms, unclasping my sweaty palms from my lap and lacing his fingers through, forcing them to relax.
Just as I feel the need to clench my thighs together, he grips both my wrists hard and pulls them tight behind my back with no concern about hurting me. I jolt forward with the pain trying to fight him but there’s no use.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my voice higher pitched than normal.
He holds my wrists securely behind the chair as he reaches for the twine.
“When I was old enough to work, I started buying my own food and cooking for myself and my mother with money he couldn’t touch.”
I feel the twine wrap around my wrists, and he pulls it taut. So tight it hurts as it digs into my skin.
“And I promised myself that good food would never go to waste. See, when you have to fight for something as simple as nourishment, you tend to appreciate it more. Something you wouldn’t have ever had to learn during all those princess-like etiquette classes.”
“What do you think you’re going to do? Force feed me?” I spit out in question.
