Breaking Him (Love is War #1)(10)

His face turned hard with disdain. “Trust me, that is not why I’m here.”

Another, even stronger, flash of temper curled through me, urging me towards destruction.

It was almost funny how we could set each other off with just a few words, the wrong look, the incorrect tone.

We were landmines for each other, and he’d just stepped squarely onto one of mine.

Any show of indifference from him, be it fraudulent or fair, was unbearable to me.

Boom. Explosion.

I felt moved by two overwhelming urges in equal parts.

I wanted to slap him silly and f*ck him blind.

I restrained myself from doing the first with no small effort.

But I actually considered doing the second. Only for the most twisted reasons, of course.

I was gaging things, trying to decide which action on my part would be more hurtful to him.

Because I wanted to hurt him.

As usual, I wanted to make him bleed.

And of all the things you could say about us, about how he felt about me, and how I felt about him, each of us knew that going to bed together again would hurt us both.

A double-edged sword.

I’d take my licks, I decided. It’d be worth it to inflict a bit on him.

It was a sad, tragic fact that I’d take three times my share of the damage just to give him his third of it.

“Fine,” I said curtly, barely looking at him. “Let’s go somewhere. Where are you staying? Take me to your hotel room.”

He nodded jerkily. “That works.”

“Let me say goodbye to my friends. You stay here.”

“You aren’t going to introduce me?” he asked my back.

“Fuck you,” I said casually, and strode away.

“You’re going somewhere with The Bastard?” Demi asked, sounding scandalized. She didn’t know the whole story, but she knew enough. “But I thought you hated him.”

“Oh I do.”

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Leona asked, her eyes on Dante.

“I’m a big girl. I got this.”

None of them tried to stop me. They all knew me too well to even think of getting in my way when I was in this mood.

“Text me when you’re in safe for the night!” Leona called to my back.

I waved a hand at her that I would, and left with The Bastard.





CHAPTER

FIVE

“Temptation is a woman's weapon and man's excuse.”

H. L. Mencken





I couldn’t help but mock Dante as he flagged down a cab. “Aw. Look at you, taking a taxi like a normal person. The poor little rich boy’s still in denial? Still think you’re just like the rest of us?”

He ignored me, though going by his stiffened posture, it was clearly still a sore spot for him.

He was born filthy rich, but he’d always struggled with it.

I was born stinking poor, so his struggle always pissed me the hell off because it was an affront to my own.

We sat as far apart as two people could get in the back of the cab.

I’d decided to f*ck him tonight. That didn’t mean I had any desire to be near him.

It was a quick ride to the fairly modest establishment where he was staying. I say fairly modest only in comparison to what he could afford. He always did things like this, lived below his means whenever he could.

He was an * like that.

I made him walk ahead of me from the car into the building and then down the hallway to his suite. I knew if he was behind me he’d try to take my arm or lead me with his hand on the small of my back, both things I couldn’t stomach, because they were too familiar.

Everything about him was too familiar.

I felt a few flutters of misgiving right about the time he opened the door of his room and waved me in.

I ignored them, striding inside.

I can handle this, I told myself. He was the one that should have been worried.

“I don’t know how to tell you this,” he began but trailed off when he saw that I’d walked straight to the bed.

I perched on the edge, parted my legs, and started to inch my skirt up. It was short, so there wasn’t far to go.

“What? Are you going to say now that you didn’t bring me here to f*ck?”

His throat worked as he swallowed hard, his eyes darting around, avoiding me suddenly. Just the mention of it had him looking like a junkie desperate for a fix.

He took a deep breath then expelled it. He knew what I was up to. In a great many ways, he knew me better than anyone else. “I actually didn’t. I swear it.“

I laughed, a seductively bitter laugh. Candy dipped in poison.

Eat it up, you bastard.

The sound of it made him wince, which made me happy. “Are you saying that you’re actually going to turn me down?”

His eyes latched onto me as he tugged his tie loose impatiently, then tore at the collar of his shirt. My eyes darted away when he exposed the chain he always wore around his neck.

God, why did he still wear that thing? Bile rose in my throat just at the sight of it.

“I’m saying that we really do need to talk,” he said.

With a sigh, I stood. This was an unusual amount of resistance from him.

He was easily led in matters of the flesh.

He’d never told me no before. I wondered if this would be a first.