Stumbling over the shit on my floor, I found a flashlight in the bedside table and switched it on.
It wasn’t storming out, and we paid our bills on time. Why the hell was the electricity out?
Walking over to the window, I saw the Brandt’s porch light on, so I knew it wasn’t the neighborhood.
And then I saw Tate.
No. I zoned in on her like a bullet.
Her silhouette was behind her curtain, and I knew. I f**king knew what she did.
Powering down the stairs and through the drunken ass**les falling and laughing around my house and yard, I darted out the backdoor, hopped on the AC unit and jumped over the fence.
The key her father left me to watch over the house was still on my key ring, so I dug it out of my pants and charged through the back door, not caring if she heard me.
She’d find out soon enough that I was in the house, anyway.
God! I can’t believe she cut the f**king electricity to my house.
My blood swirled like a cyclonic wind inside of me, but believe it or not, it felt easy. This was where I was strong.
Was I supposed to be in here? No. What would I do or say when I got to her? I had no idea. But I wanted this fight.
Swinging myself around the bannister, I barreled up the stairs and caught sight of Tate darting back into her room.
Was that a bat she was holding?
Yeah, that was gonna help. She wasn’t safe from me, and now she knew it.
I swung her door open in time to see her try to make her escape through the French doors. “Oh no, you don’t!”
Turning around to face me, she tried to raise the bat, but I was on her before she even got ready to swing. Snatching it out of her hands, I charged into her space, hovering but not touching. Wave after wave of heat washed over me from the inch of air between us.
She was pissed, too, from the look in her eyes. But her breathing wasn’t hard and deep. It was fast and shallow. She was scared.
“Get out! Are you crazy?” she tried to dart around me to get out of the room, but I cut her off.
“You cut the electricity to my house.” I kept my voice low and even. I didn’t want her afraid of me. It’s not like I would hurt her. But she had to know that one good turn deserved another.
“Prove it,” she snipped.
Oh, baby. My face relaxed, and I orchestrated a very fake and creepy smile. She did not want to play with me like this.
“How’d you get in here?” she snapped. “I’ll call the police!”
“I have a key,” I responded, enjoying her crestfallen face.
“How do you have a key to my house?”
“You and your dad were in Europe all summer,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “Who do you think got the mail? Your dad trusts me. He shouldn’t have.”
James Brandt, I was pretty sure, knew next to nothing about my relationship with his daughter. Tate didn’t go whining about the state of affairs between us, because if she did, I was sure I’d be missing a couple of limbs.
“Get out,” she ordered, disgust and ire written all over her face, and I clenched my fists.
Advancing on her until she was backed up against her French doors, I hovered down and let her know who was really in control here.
Lesson one, Tate. I don’t do what I’m told. “You’re a nosy bitch, Tatum. Keep your f**king ass on your own side of the fence.”
She met my eyes, not blinking. “Keeping the neighborhood awake makes people irritable.”
I almost laughed at her spunk. She was trying to prove what a fighter she could be, and I plastered both of my hands on each side of her head, letting her know that she wasn’t even in my weight class.
Why she didn’t squirm out from under my arm, I have no idea. I half-expected her to. She stayed her ground, and unfortunately, that was hard on the both of us, I think. Eye to eye, nose to nose, tasting her breath, the room was crowded with tension or hatred. Maybe both, or maybe it was something else.
Thank God, she was the one to look away first. Her eyes dropped, and for a moment I thought I had her.
Until…her eyes started roaming over me, and I f**king stiffened.
Everywhere.
I watched as her heated gaze blazed a path over the lantern tattoo on my upper arm and down to the script on my torso, over my bare stomach and up my na**d chest.
And goddamn, her eyes felt good.
What the hell are you doing, Tate?
Images from my daydream in the bathroom poured in, and my own gaze started to fall down over her uncontrollably.
I enjoyed a great view down her black tank top and over the tops of her perfect br**sts. I liked that I could see a sliver of her stomach where the waistband of her little boxer shorts was rolled over. I loved thinking about what she’d sound like moaning my name.
But I hated that looking into her eyes was the best view of all.
She saw me, the real me, and it was the only time I actually felt like I existed.
But she also saw all of the ugliness and confusion.
She saw everything that made me a loser.
And that’s when I knew what she was doing. She was playing a game with me. Looking at me, getting me to nearly lose it.
Taking a deep breath, I turned away to walk out. “No one else is complaining so why don’t you shut up and leave it alone?”
“Leave the key,” she shot back, and I stopped.
I exhaled a bitter laugh. “You know, I underestimated you. You haven’t cried yet, have you?”
“Because of the rumor you started this week? Not a chance.”
Yep, she thought those pictures were my idea.
“Please, like I even have to resort to spreading rumors. Your cross-country pals did that. And their pictures. Everyone drew their own conclusions.” And I walked back over to her and got in her face. “But I’m boring you. I guess I have to step up my game.”
The threat hung in the air between us.
Her lips pursed, and her eyes must’ve burned. They were shooting flames.
She was ready to lose it. In 3-2-1…
“What did I ever do to you?” she screamed.
I shrugged my shoulders, not willing to tell her the truth. “I don’t know why you ever thought you did something. You were clingy, and I got sick of putting up with it is all.”
She wasn’t clingy. She was dishonest and unreliable.
“That’s not true. I wasn’t clingy.” She choked on a breath. “You were over at my house as much as I was at yours. We were friends.” She looked at me with such sadness. Her face was tight, and tears pooled in her eyes.
All a f**king lie.
I smiled, but it burned with more anger than amusement. “Yeah, keep livin’ the dream.”
“I hate you!”
And there it was.
“Good!” I shouted, bearing down on her, my heart beating wildly. “Finally! Because it’s been a long time since I could stand the sight of you.” And I slammed the palm of my hand against the wall near her head.
She flinched, and my heart did a nosedive straight to my stomach.
Shit.
I’d scared her.
Why the hell did I just do that?
I backed off an inch.
I’d wanted to hit something but not her. And I didn’t want her to think I’d even come close to doing that. Ever. I’d never hit a girl and would never hit one in my life.
Goddamn it. She wasn’t looking at me now.
Things were never this bad between us.
She used to turn-tail and run. Before France. Or before she knew she was leaving for France, anyway.
And when she’d bow out, I’d power down.
I could be satisfied.
But now…now, I wasn’t the stronger one. She was meeting going head to head with me and taking the challenge.
We both stood there, and she finally looked up to meet my eyes. Something passed in the blue ocean of hers. Despair? Regret?
And finally, resolution.
My eyes were still trained on her, waiting for her to say something, when she turned around to look out the window.
“Oh, look. It’s the police,” she said in a light voice. “I wonder why they’re here.”
I looked over her shoulder to see two black and whites, lights flashing and parked in front of my house. A couple of officers climbed up the incline into my yard, looking around at the chaos.
Son of a bitch.
There was no time to call them when I entered her house. She must’ve filed a complaint earlier.
Right now, you’re looking at her like you want to tie her up and give her a big, fat spanking.
Madoc’s stupid assessment was true. She definitely deserved a huge spanking.
“I promise you will be in tears by next week.” I was going to do what I had to do. My tone was calm, decisive, and final, and I left the room, already making my plans.
“Leave the key,” she shouted after me.
But I never do what I’m told.
Chapter 14
After I cleared everyone out of my house, the cops wrote me a huge ass ticket and called my mother.
But it all affected me about as much as war in the Middle East.
Trouble with the cops? Old news.
Getting squeezed for cash I didn’t have? Child’s play.
Jax and Madoc helped me clean up the house before my mom got home, and then I showered and went to bed, letting Jax crash in the spare bedroom.
Tate was the only thing on my mind right now. Any inkling that what I was thinking of doing might be going too far was shoved out of my head. Did she really set out to hurt me? No. Was I setting out to hurt her? Definitely.
But it was all a game.
She didn’t care, and anything we shared years ago was nothing to her. Every time I pushed her, it wasn’t really about making her feel bad. It was about proving to myself that my head and heart weren’t in her control.
And if I could rip her from my head and my heart, kill everything good I felt about her, then I was strong.
“Hey, K.C.?” I walked up to the concession counter at Spotlight Cinemas where Tate’s best friend worked. “How’s it going?”
She looked up from her book and narrowed her eyes. “Don’t talk to me, Shit-For-Brains.”
“Ouch.” I smiled and gave her a condescending nod. “Good for you.”
K.C. was Tate’s best friend. Her only friend, really. Winning her over, possibly seducing her, would tear Tate apart, and I was ignoring the voice in my head that kept screaming at me to stop this.
This was going too far.
I was about to use someone to hurt a girl I once loved? Who the hell did I take lessons from in pettiness?
Tate’s arrival back home brought ups and downs. My ups were better than I’d felt in a year, but my downs had me clawing at the f**king walls again. K.C. was collateral damage.
I could do this.
“Can I have a large popcorn and a Coke, please?”
K.C. rolled her eyes and walked toward the food.
I strolled down the stand to where she was shoveling popcorn into a bucket.
Here we go.
“So, are you heading to the Loop tonight with Liam?” I asked about her boyfriend.
Without lifting her eyes from her task, she shook her head. “How often do you see me there, Jared?” she asked, annoyed. “A bunch of little boys moaning and groaning about the size of their dicks—oh, excuse me—I mean, the size of their engines, and I’m supposed to find that fun?”
“Take it easy.” I held up my hands. “I just thought that since Liam was racing, you’d be there to support him.”
Now she looked up. “He’s racing?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to keep my tone nonchalant. “He’s racing Nate Dietrich. He didn’t tell you?”
Lifting her chin, looking none too pleased, she slammed the popcorn on the counter and turned around to get the soda.
Her boyfriend, while a pretty nice guy, was also pretty damn pathetic. He’s the type of guy that would give up top secret information in the first five minutes of torture. I had no respect for him.