Rapture Untamed (Feral Warriors #4)(13)

He heard the conviction of her words, felt it all the way to his bones, where it resonated deeply.

"I'm good at what I do," she said simply. "And I enjoy it."

"I get that. I feel the same," he added, surprising himself with his honesty.

Surprising them both. Her brows rose as she shot him a curious look. "Youlike being a Feral Warrior? You have an odd way of showing it, Jag."

Wasn't that the truth. But yeah, he liked being a Feral, liked fighting draden and Mage.

It was the only thing that gave his life purpose. But he'd never tell her that. Touchy-feely pillow talk sure as hell wasn't his thing.

Pamela Palmer Rapture Untamed

"It gets me laid, Sugar. All the girls want to f**k a Feral, you know that."

She rolled her eyes. "Everything goes back to sex with you, doesn't it?"

"You ever order your men to go down on you, Red? I can't stop wondering if you have freckles down there, swimming in the cream."

He expected her to turn away in disgust, ignoring him again. Or maybe, if he was lucky, she'd lose her temper and slug him a good one. Instead, she turned toward him, shoulders and all, but remained silent.

He glanced at her, thinking she was giving him the evil eye or something, but she was studying him as if she'd shoved him under a microscope.

"What?" he snapped. He was starting to feel twitchy under that cool, intense regard.

"Do you even know why you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Annoy the hell out of everyone?"

Jag shrugged. "It's just who I am, Sugar. Like I said, I'm not a nice guy."

"See, I don't believe that."

Tearing his gaze from the road, he gave her an incredulous look.

She leaned her shoulder more firmly against the seat as if settling in for a nice long discussion.Hell. His gaze returned to the road.

"I saw you with Pink in the war room, Jag. She was by far the most vulnerable person in there, the easiest target, yet you defended her. Violently. And she hadn't even been attacked, not outright. You wouldn't allow anyone to so much as hurt her feelings."

Jag scowled. "Pink's had a rough go of it."

"That's my point. She'd be the easiest of targets if your aim was to hurt, but it's not.

And you never aimed your barbs at Kara or Skye, either. Only at Delaney and me, but you can't hurt either of us with them, and I think you know that."

She was starting to piss him off. "I'm not looking to hurt you, Red. Just f**k your brains out."

Pamela Palmer Rapture Untamed

"You use sex talk as a defense, do you know that?"

"You can shut up now, Sigmund Freud."

Olivia didn't bat an eye. Nor did she shut up, dammit.

"You don't hurt the vulnerable, Jag. What you do is make people mad at you - the other Ferals, my men.Me. You want us mad. Youneed us mad at you. Do you know why?"

He gripped the steering wheel hard, throwing her a glower that would have had men three times her size quaking in their boots. And he knew it wouldn't make an ounce of difference. "I'm sure you're going to tell me."

To his surprise, she turned forward again, tilting her head back until it rested against the seat behind her. For several moments, she was silent, and he thought maybe she was through with him after all. But when she began to speak, he felt transported - to a place he didn't want to go.

"Years ago, something happened for which I blamed myself bitterly, Jag. I hated myself and everything about me." Her voice was low, her words devoid of emotion.

But the emotion was there, buried so deep he felt it tugging at the hole in his chest where his heart used to be. "I let others hurt me. I practically begged them to hurt me.

At the time, I didn't understand why. It wasn't until years later that I finally figured out that my own self-hatred had sought out the punishment. It almost destroyed me. The thing is, after living with that kind of guilt and darkness, after suffering it myself, I've come to recognize it in others."

She turned back to face him. "I see it in you."

Goddess, he didn't need this shit. "I like myself just fine, Olivia."

"Do you?" She let the question hang in the air, her tone telling him clearly she didn't believe him.Damn little prissy psychoanalyst.

"The way I see it, you can't stand foranyone to like you. You need them to hate you as much as you hate yourself. So you antagonize and annoy them as your own personal form of self-punishment. Deep down, you're a decent guy, Jag. You don't actually hurt anyone - you don't break their things, you don't kill their pets. You don't even punch them in the face. Instead, you heckle them until they're the ones punching you. Until all you see in their eyes is the same deep, raw dislike you feel for yourself."

He scoffed. "You've known mehow long? How the f**k do you know I don't break the other kids' toys or twist the heads off their hamsters?"

Pamela Palmer Rapture Untamed

"I know."

Goddess, her know-it-all attitude was pissing him off.

Okay, maybe he didn't do those things, but she was wrong about the rest of it. Totally off. He wasn't a decent guy. And he wasn't some f**ked-up self-hating loser. He was just who he was.