I’m the fucking Queen of England.’
She didn’t say anything to that, her hands white-knuckled in her lap.
Christ, this silence bullshit was starting to get really fucking annoying.
‘What the hell are you doing here, Summer?’ I demanded, coming to the end of my patience. ‘And look at me when I’m talking to you.’
Finally, she lifted her head, and maybe I was imagining things, but it seemed like her eyes were less dark. I saw a small blue spark had flickered to life in them.
If it was anger, then good. That was way better than fear.
‘Maybe I just wanted to hang out with some b-bikers,’ she said, a defensive note in her voice.
I nearly laughed. ‘Seriously? You were nearly catatonic back there, baby girl. So, no, I’m not buying you wanting to hang out with some bikers.’
That pretty mouth of hers thinned. ‘I’m not a baby and I’m not a girl.’
Yeah, looked like I was annoying her, which was excellent. It also looked like she had a bit of spirit in her after all. Certainly more than she’d had when she was seventeen.
Yeah, and you like that, too.
Which I was not going to think about.
‘I don’t care who you are,’ I said mildly. ‘You’ve got five seconds to give me the truth or I’m taking you straight to Keep and you can tell him.’
Fear flashed in her eyes again, but this time that determined chin firmed. Another good sign. ‘Don’t do that. Please.’
‘Okay, well, you’d better start doing some talking then, hadn’t you?’
Her gaze flicked away from mine. ‘Well...um... I... It’s...uh...’
‘Use your words, baby girl.’
It flicked back, another of those blue sparks flashing, the colour in her cheeks pinker. Much, much better. Annoying her was clearly the way to go. Which was excellent considering I was a master at annoying the shit out of people.
‘Give me one good reason I should tell you.’ She lifted that chin, looking down her nose at me, all haughty and shit. And fuck knows why, but my cock found that extremely hot.
‘Because I asked you,’ I said gently, ignoring my impatient dick.
She frowned. ‘That’s not a good enough reason.’
Holy shit, this woman was a problem.
‘Baby girl,’ I explained, trying to be patient, ‘the way I see it, you have two choices. You either tell me what’s going on right now. Or you tell me what’s going on right now.’
Her frown deepened. ‘But...those two are the same.’
I folded my arms and gave her my enforcer’s smile. The one guaranteed to make a brother wish they’d never been born. ‘Yeah. I know.’
Summer
I SAT ON Tiger’s bed and stared at him, feeling something deep inside me quiver in a way that had nothing whatsoever to do with the weird panic that had overtaken me in Crash’s room.
Or rather, it felt related to fear but not like I was in imminent danger of death or anything. More like when you get on a rollercoaster or a plane taking off, and everything is fast and out of control and it’s freaky and scary at the same time.
Tiger had always had that effect on me. He had been exciting and scary and I just hadn’t known what to do with myself around him.
I still didn’t.
Him suddenly appearing in Crash’s room like some kind of tattooed avenging angel, bringing all my confused teenaged feelings about him flooding back, had made me freeze. Like I just...couldn’t deal with Crash and him and where I was and what was happening all at the same time. And then he’d picked me up and tossed me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing at all and my brain had simply shut down.
Sometimes it happened to me like that. When I got overwhelmed, I froze. As if I was afraid something worse might happen if I moved.
I hated it. Or rather, I hated myself when I got like that. Especially when it happened in front of someone so strong and in control.
Someone like Tiger.
And he was just as strong and in control now as he had been back when I was seventeen. Just as tall and muscular. Just as scary. And just as freaking hot.
He was in jeans and a blue T-shirt, that biker leather vest over the top, and he had his arms folded, giving me a glimpse of the incredible tattoos inked into the bronze skin covering the powerful muscles of his biceps and forearms.
On his right arm, a tiger prowled, long and lean and dangerous, its teeth bared. On his left, an intricate, dizzying design of interlocking circles and spirals and all sorts of other geometries. For a second I got distracted, too busy staring at it and trying to follow all the angles to remember that he’d asked me a question.
‘Baby girl,’ he said quietly, in that deep voice that I felt right down low in my belly, ‘I’m not gonna ask again.’
Baby girl. Hadn’t he heard me when I’d told him I didn’t like it? How annoying. I’d hated it back when he’d been my protector, had found it incredibly patronising, but I’d been too shy to tell him to stop.
I had a bit more backbone now, though I got distracted again by the warning note in his voice.
Crap. He was going to make me tell him, wasn’t he? God, what the hell was I going to do now? I didn’t want him to find out what a coward I was. Or how ridiculously stupid I’d been to come down here without a plan.
No, I shouldn’t have cared what he thought of me, but the fact was, I did.
He was so strong and bright and...vivid. He didn’t give a shit what anyone thought of him. He did whatever the hell he wanted.
He was everything that I wasn’t and that intimidated the crap out of me, and the thought of having to spill my guts to him about Dad and my generally being pathetic when it came to emotional manipulation made me feel ill.
But what choice did I have?
Well, you could try distracting him...
That was an option, of course. But how? I wasn’t especially good at small talk and found talking to people in general difficult. Particularly people who intimidated me.
I bit my lip and frowned at him. My panic seemed to have receded, which was a mercy, my brain functioning again, formulating several plans, then discarding them.
Maybe I should ask him about his tattoos. Didn’t guys like talking about
