Page 18 of Savage in the Streets
Why did you have to go and make things awkward? This woman is doing you a favor.
I hear footsteps and breathe out a sigh of relief. A moment later, Ashton appears, carrying a large, plastic container that’s shaking.
For a moment, I feel overwhelming humiliation as I look down at my bare legs, but his shirt sits longer than some of my skirts, so it’s more of a psychological anxiety than anything.
His face looks….different. There are red marks across his jaw like he’s been mauled.
“I couldn’t find your cat,” Ashton says, holding up the container. “But I may have caught Satan.”
So he’s met Princess Petunia…which means….
All at once, I feel self-conscious.
“You went to my apartment!”
“I had to bring you some of your things.”
Fire courses through my veins. “That’s a major invasion of privacy!”
“I had to do it. Eventually, the cops would have discovered your address, and then they would have swept the place.”
“And found nothing.” I narrow my eyes at him and tap my long, black fingernails on his kitchen island.
“I have to admit, you’re good,” he says back.
“It couldn’t be that I’m innocent,” I say in a sardonic tone.
“That would be unlikely.”
I turn away, worried that I’m going to spontaneously combust with how furious I’m getting. How can so much arrogance be poured into any one man?
“I’m going to need Princess Satan’s papers if she’s to be boarded, but honestly, I don’t think anyone will take her. She’s…just as ornery as you are.”
“I take that as a compliment.”
“I’m gonna head on over to the shop now,” Mabel chirps, and Ashton hands over the keys he stole from my nightstand.
Once she’s left and it’s just Ashton and me, I allow my anger to show again.
“So you take my keys. Steal my phone. Hide my goddamn shorts, so I’m just in your fucking undershirt when I meet the woman who’s going to be running my shop?”
Ashton casts me a deadpan stare free of sympathy. “You’re out on bail. Conditional bail.”
“And you’re my prison warden.”
“You should be thanking me.”
“For what? Stealing? Going through my things?”
He pulls my phone from his pocket but holds it just out of reach. “As soon as we talk, you can have this back.”
“Talk?”
“First about expectations. Then about the case.”
I suck in a breath. “So…this is real? You’re going to represent me and try to get me off. I mean, in the non-sexual way, because you’d clearly have issues otherwise.”
His face lightens a tad, and he almost chuckles. Almost.
