Page 8 of Breaking the Rules
He looked like a rich playboy on vacation. But she knew better.
Waverly hated the instantaneous physical reaction her body had to him. Her palms were sweaty, and a deluge of adrenaline sent her blood pumping fast and hard through her system. Her nipples—the traitors—tightened with memories of what that stern looking mouth had done to them.
“This is private property,” she said evenly. She wanted to march over to him and slap him across the face with a blow so hard it would echo across the entire island. But she didn’t want him to see her wince when she got up. Besides, she knew what happened between them when they let anger get physical. Fireworks. Orgasmic fireworks that shook her to the very core.
And she was never going to let that happen again.
“Don’t disappoint me, Waverly. Aren’t you dying to know how I found you?”
She was, and that pissed her off. “I couldn’t care less what you’re doing here. So why don’t you do me a favor and take a nice long walk off of that dock?”
He pushed away from the tree and ambled toward her. Her pulse thudded louder with every step that brought him closer to her. Every cell in her body was screaming in recognition. She couldn’t hear the ocean over the blood pumping in her head.
She realized the gauze from her bandage was sticking out and yanked down the hem of her tank top. If he was surprised that she didn’t jump up or try to run, he didn’t show it. Xavier just sat down at the end of her lounger, comfortable as could be.
“I missed you,” he said.
No other combination of words in the English language could have pissed her off faster. She hung onto the anger with both hands in a white-knuckle grip. “I’m going to give you to the count of five to get off my property before I call security.”
It was a bluff, but besides pulling the gun from under the magazine and shooting him, it was all she had at the moment.
He grinned. “Don’t you know better than to lie to me, Angel?”
“Stop calling me that,” she snapped. It had been his code name for her and had morphed into an endearment. There had been a time in her life that she had longed to hear that word from Xavier’s lips. Now it felt like lemon juice in a gunshot wound.
“Or what? You’ll call your security?” he smirked. “Go ahead, beautiful. Let’s see who comes to your rescue.”
Now she really wanted to shoot him.
“I don’t need to be rescued anymore. I learned a long time ago that you can’t depend on anyone to keep you safe.”
It was a dig and a deep one.
Xavier said nothing but reached for her foot, a move he’d made dozens of times before. She yanked it out of his grasp and planted it squarely in his chest instead. “Back off, X.”
That gorgeous smile, and the hand he ran up her calf, told her she wasn’t pissing him off. No, she was turning him on and that was worse. She didn’t want to test her immunity to him when she was already weakened. With her entire body already singing, she knew how it would go if he made a move on her. So she shut it down, unleashing the inner Ice Queen.
“You’re wasting your time here. I got over you a long time ago, Saint.”
The noise he made was somewhere between a growl and purr. “I never got over you. And I finally gave up trying.”
Words that she would have given anything to have heard years ago. But the time for that, for them, was long over.
“Stop talking and get your ass back on the boat.” The ice was melting as the rage bubbled to the surface. She hated him, hated her reaction to him. He was coming at her when she was at her weakest, but she wasn’t going to fall under that spell again. She would never go back to that.
“I’m not going anywhere, Angel.”
“Last chance before I call security,” she said. Her fingertips brushed the grip of the gun, and it gave her strength.
“Angel, I am security.”
She was shaking her head before the word left her lips. “No.”
“Oh, yes. Say hello to your new head of private security.”
“I didn’t hire you!”
He leaned casually on his elbow, enjoying himself.
