Rogue (Real #4)(50)
“Why not?”
“Because,” he grits out, “you need your car.”
“Not to go to the office,” I lightly counter, “and I can hitch a ride with friends to go out during the weekends.”
When he continues looking displeased, I feel instantly suspicious. “Why are you so protective of my car, Greyson?”
After a rather interesting silence, during which my heart melts in my chest, I answer for him. “Because thanks to that f*cked-up car, I hooked up with you.”
He hikes up one big shoulder in an angry shrug. “That car is you. It doesn’t go with anyone else.”
I feel giddy thinking he might feel protective of the spot where we met, but I’m also sad that I can’t explain to him that no matter how attached I am to that car, I’m more attached to myself. “My buyer is a young eighteen-year-old, she’ll have as much fun with it as I have.”
When he speaks again, his voice carries a unique force, almost like a command. “Nobody can ever have as much fun as you do. You are fun, Melanie. And life. And so is that crazy, sweet little blue Mustang.”
I bring my hand up to stifle my giggles, because he’s being terribly cute and protective, and when he scowls, I tell him, “I think it’s adorable, Greyson.”
“That word and I don’t go together, princess.”
“It’s adorable. You’re adorable.”
He stands as though he’s going to make me pay for that. I run toward my room, laughing, and say from the door, “Greyson, I know this will break your tender heart, but I really need to sell my car. I’ll just ask for a thousand more. What do you say? God, even that scowl you’re wearing is adorable.”
He throws his head back and laughs—the sound rich and deep—and when I realize he won’t ever get the direness of my circumstances, I excuse myself to the bedroom for a moment and call the interested party to ask for one thousand more.
The girl tells me she’ll talk to her dad and let me know. When I come back out, Greyson’s standing with his arms crossed, looking at me with the kind of look a man wears when he doesn’t know what the f*ck to do with you.
“I counteroffered,” I explain, once again the word “adorable” whispering through my hair as he rubs a hand through his own in frustration.
“Ahh, princess. Really. I can’t even . . .” He shakes his head in obvious frustration.
“Greyson, it doesn’t matter!” I cry. “Even if the car is gone, you’ll always be both my and my Mustang’s hero, you know.”
Somehow aching to appease him—hey, his volatile energy feels like a tornado in the room—I approach him and brush my hand through his mussed-up hair as I try to smooth it out again, loving the softness, which is just about the only thing soft on his hard head. He growls and catches me by the waist, surprising me when he drops his head and sets his nose between my breasts and kisses my cleavage with fierce tenderness.
“If you weren’t going to listen to me,” he murmurs, his voice muffled by my apron, “why ask me?”
“I like knowing your opinion.”
“Show me you like it by proving you’re listening to me, Melanie.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, rumpling his head playfully as I try to make him be happy again. The pleaser in me just can’t take his displeasure. Not his. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“Hmm.” His eyes glow like torches all of a sudden. “Make it up to me by telling me how you’d like to spend your twenty-fifth birthday,” he proposes.
A moment’s hesitation settles between us. What would he say if I told him I wanted to spend the day with him? Doing nothing but him all day? That I want him to tell me about his life, his family, that I just want to be with him because, lately, that’s when I’m happiest?
Prying free of his hold and forcing him to settle down on his seat, I bring over the cinnamon apple tart on a plate, then I boost myself up to sit on the island counter right in front of his seat. Using my lap as a table, I set my bare feet on his thighs and lift a spoon to feed him dessert.
“Where did you spend your twenty-fifth birthday?” I ask, spooning a little of the tart into his mouth.
He eats every spoonful I feed him, and the act is not as hot and sexy as I’d imagined it to be; it’s ten times more so. Because of those eyes. The way they watch me feed him like some predator biding his time for the real meal. “Probably drunk. Nowhere memorable. You braid your hair when you cook too?” he asks gruffly, tugging at my knot as I feed him another spoonful.
Something intensely intimate flares between us. Every second, he’s unlocking both my heart and my soul, and there’s no stopping the barrage of emotions overtaking me. Longing, tenderness, want, hunger, need, fear, happiness.
“It’s to keep my hair on my head and off my plates,” I tell him.
“Ahh,” he says, eyes twinkling as I bring up another spoonful of tart to his mouth. Watching as his tongue takes the spoon and runs around it teases all my senses. A buttery sensation flows across my thighs as I watch how his lips close over the spoon, how he savors it, how he watches me as he eats his tart, his eyes bright and hungry and brilliant like a bastard who knows I’m wet and ready for him. I feel like he’s baking me on the inside just like the oven baked my pie. As he takes the last bite, he tugs the tip of my braid and runs it under my chin, caressing me down my throat, and then . . . into my cleavage.