Hell on Wheels (Black Knights Inc. #1)(51)

“Y’heard me,” she mimicked his accent and mashed-up word usage. “I’m too furious to deal with the sudden appearance of your nascent wit. So you’d better just watch it.”

When one black brow inched slowly up the broad expanse of his forehead, she slid him a murderous sidelong glance.

“Oh, yeah?” he taunted with a slow drawl. “Or you’re gonna do what?”

Was it possible for blood to actually boil? Because there was a definite sizzling burning along her veins.

“I may be small, but I’m mean,” she warned. Plus, Grigg had taught her a few very effective ways to outmaneuver a man twice her size. She itched for Nate to give her one good reason to put those skills to the test.

Just. One.

When his lips twitched again, that did it.

Before she even thought about her next move, she lifted her foot and stomped down on the recliner’s footstool, propelling him jerkily into a sitting position. His big feet clunked on the floor as his hair whipped forward to momentarily cover his eyes. He slowly raised a broad palm and carefully raked it back into place.

She stood over him, her eyes shooting steel daggers as her nostrils flared like an angry bull’s.

Yeah, give him a red flag and she’d certainly charge headlong.

“You’re playing with fire, Ali,” he warned, but she was too angry to heed it.

“Oh, I’m real scared.”

Slowly, purposefully he uncurled his large frame from the deep seat and stood in a fluid series of bunching muscles and flexing tendons. She had to tilt her head far back in order to continue to glare into his impassive face, but she didn’t so much as give an inch.

Nor did she intend to.

She needed to lash out, to bite and scratch and cry. To make someone feel as hopeless and powerless and wretched as she did.

And who better than Nate? The man who’d lied to her, rejected her, and was now attempting to threaten and bully her into giving up the only hope she really had of ever knowing what Grigg was involved in before his death.

“You’ll tell me where you’ve hidden that zip drive,” he rumbled as he grabbed her shoulders and gave her a gentle shake.

The sudden narrowing of her eyes should’ve warned him he’d succeeded in pushing her last button, but he did nothing to dodge her clenched fists as she swung them up in a two semi-circles, effectively knocking his trespassing hands away. Nor did he duck the fairly impressive right hook she aimed straight at his solid jaw.

She smiled with vicious glee when his teeth snapped together with a loud clack as his head jerked back on his neck.

Take that, you low-down, rejecting, brooding, cold-hearted, lying sonofagun!

She was startled at how quickly he shook off the blow, missing her opportunity to step out of his reach as he swiftly swooped in to secure her arms against her sides, pulling her into his wide chest until he acted as a flesh-and-bone straight jacket.

Uh-huh, pretty slick move, but it only managed to secure her upper body. Her legs were still free, and boy-howdy, she put them to good use.

Hastily swiveling his hips, he grunted and swallowed a low curse when her sharp knee landed just to the right of his family jewels. Somehow, he managed to pin her struggling legs between the steely power of his thighs until all she could do was hiss and wiggle ineffectually.

She called him every dirty name in the book and several more of her own personal construction. But to her utter dismay, her futile struggles soon turned to heart-wrenching sobs.

Why had Grigg felt he had to lie to her? What had he gotten her involved in? Why did he have to go and die and leave her alone? And why had she been foolish enough to fall for Nate Weller? How could she have let herself feel this way about him?

Was she in love with him? God, she didn’t know, but she was afraid she just might be.

It was all so useless. She felt so helpless. She wanted to scream, but all the fight drained out of her, leaving only despair and grief and exhaustion in its place.

When she sagged bonelessly inside the manacle of his strong arms, he gently, oh so gently, resumed his seat in the recliner, taking her with him into his lap.

“Feel better?” he asked softly when a full sixty seconds passed after her last snotty sniffle.

“Y-yes,” she hesitantly admitted, her head tucked beneath his hard chin, golden blond strands getting stuck in the black whiskers on his jaw. She raised the hem of her shirt and wiped her running nose. She didn’t even care how gross it was. “But I shouldn’t. It’s not right to hit someone.”

Even if she’d known the punch she’d thrown wouldn’t really hurt him, not that unyielding wall of flesh and bone, it still didn’t excuse her tendency toward violence whenever he was around.

“You just make me so…mad sometimes. You’re the most infuriating man I’ve ever known, and that’s saying something considering I grew up with Grigg.”

“Y’needed t’vent a little steam or you were gonna explode.”

She pushed back and pinned on him a watery, sidelong look. “Are you saying you intentionally provoked me?”

One big shoulder twitched. She took that to be a yes.

“But, why?”

“Like I said, y’needed to vent.”

Well crapola. She felt just horrible about the whole thing.

“You are a complete dichotomy, you know that? Just when I’ve crowned you King of the Buttholes, you go and do something…sweet. Sweet but kinda weird in the same breath. I mean, who offers themselves up for abuse?”