Brutal Obsession (52)

I tilt my head to the street. “Get ready for this interview and try not to look freshly fucked while you’re at it.”

She rears back.

I’m clearly in her way, and she waits a beat for me to move.

I don’t.

It seems to occur to her only seconds later, and she climbs over me. Her pert ass slides across my groin, and she lets out a hiss when she brushes my cock. I don’t move to touch her, still practicing that self-control. And then her feet are on the asphalt, and she must feel safe enough to turn back and look at me.

Her gaze drops to my lap.

“Anytime you want to take a ride, sweetheart,” I goad.

She narrows her eyes.

“You’ve got an hour.”

That makes pretty Violet pause. “To meet with that publicist?”

I check my watch. “Technically, we meet with her in forty minutes.”

“Why should I go with you?”

Oh, a test? I do love these. I pull my phone from my pocket and open the video of her breaking the NDA. Her anger comes off her in waves on my screen, palpable even from here. I let it play, enjoying the theater of it.

When it ends, I watch her. “If you don’t talk to me, then this goes to my father. Remember?”

“This is blackmail,” she says.

I smile. “Clock’s ticking, Vi.”

“You’re a controlling ass,” she murmurs, already heading back to her apartment.

I don’t bother refuting that. Therapists have told me I have a controlling nature. It has to do with my parents. My father’s blasé child-rearing, my mother’s abandonment. Dad only cared about success, prestige, money. Power. He raised me to care about those things, too, and only those things.

The therapist said I tried to control people through manipulation to regain power over my environment.

Whatever.

Fifteen minutes later, Violet reemerges from her apartment and climbs into my passenger seat. She adjusts the long charcoal-gray skirt and sweater decorated with oversized opal buttons. The color is fitting, even if she doesn’t know it yet.

She gnaws on her lower lip as I take us back to campus. Her fingers dig rhythmically into her left thigh. I keep glancing at her out of the corner of my eye.

She’s in my car.

She smells good.

I shouldn’t fucking like that she smells like flowers, that her blonde hair is brushed straight and lays over her shoulders, that her makeup is flawless.

It makes me want to fuck her mouth till mascara streams down her cheeks.

If only that was an option…

“Take a picture,” she says, not looking at me. “It’ll last longer.”

I smirk. “Why take a picture when I have a video of you? Two, actually…”

“Wow, just when I was thinking you weren’t that terrible.” Her gaze is fastened out of her window, and her fingers keep digging into her leg.

I check the clock—we have time to spare—and pull over swiftly. Annoyance surges through me, and I reach out and grab her chin. I pull her back toward me and wait for her eyes to follow. She gives them to me eventually, as the seconds tick by, and they go from my lips to my eyes. Her tongue pokes out, wetting her lips.

“Let’s get something straight,” I say slowly, my gaze fixed on her lips. It’s a real struggle not to kiss her. “I am that terrible—and worse. Remember that, sweetheart, when you go to sleep and wish for dreams. Because you’ll just get nightmares. And me? I’m the worst fucking nightmare you could imagine.”

Her eyes flash, giving me not fear but hurt. Like she has a better picture of me in her head, but I’m ruining it.

Good. It should be ruined.

I release her and pull back out onto the street.





23





VIOLET





He’s going to kill me.

I didn’t think it before. When we first collided—well, not the first time—I thought I was strong enough to endure him. To outlive his anger and his ego.

Now, I’m not so sure.

It’s funny how things change when hope enters the picture.

I sparred with him because there was a recklessness inside me that didn’t give a shit if I came out unscathed. In fact, I think I expected the barbs to sting, if only to distract from my own pain. The voice in my head that said I’d never dance again. The worry that my mother was done with me. The fear of not knowing what I was going to do after college.

Mia Germain infused hope back into me with one phone call.

I’m less than forty-eight hours away from seeing if my dreams are still possible.

And it. Fucking. Sucks.

I’ve never been more stressed.

We park outside the stadium, in one of the VIP spots—as if Greyson needs more ego—and go inside. It’s cool and dark here, and intensely quiet.

“Do you practice here?”

“Most evenings.” He straightens his shirt and glances at me. “Some girls watch.”

“Why would they do that?” Seems it would get tedious, watching them do drills over and over again. At the very least, mind-dullingly boring.

He lifts a shoulder. When I glance over at him, he’s smirking.

I stop. “They come for you, don’t they?”