her lips pulled into a sneer, her eyes narrowed, but I reach up in time to grip the rod and pull her down with it, her hands finally letting go when I roll her over, straddle her hips and slam her wrists to the floor above her head.
Lowering my head down I bite the tip of her nose, chuckling when she bucks against me trying to dislodge my weight.
“Do you really think you can win?”
“Get the fuck off me,” she yells, still angry, her face a deep sheen of red.
I wonder when she’ll figure out I’m just toying with her.
“I’ll give you another chance. But if I win, I get whatever I want when this is over. Is it a deal?”
“Get off me,” she roars, so far gone in her bid to kill me, she doesn’t notice the smirk on my face.
I roll off her and push to my feet, watching her scramble away before pushing to hers. She runs for the knife first, launching it at me so hard that I have to jump sideways to keep from being hit with it.
A glass vase flies past my head next to shatter on a far wall, followed by a heavy paperweight that would have hurt like hell if it hit me.
This is honestly the most fun I’ve had in a long time, so I let her keep going, not giving a shit about what she’s breaking.
“You son of a fucking bitch,” she screams when throwing a heavy bookend at me. “Let me the fuck go!”
Dodging that, I smile and laugh to see the little monster rear her head.
The girl I once knew.
The nightmare.
The woman she’d been before Grant Cabot broke her down and drove the wild spirit out of her.
Adeline
Now?
Is he fucking kidding me?
Now is when he decides to finally stretch those cruel lips into a true smile? Now, when my anger and rage is at a boiling point, and I’m terrified of what he’ll do to me? Now is when he has an expression of such pure joy that I want to stop trying to kill him and soak in the moment?
What a fucking psychopathic prick!
I lob another heavy object at Ari’s head that he easily dodges, laughter shaking his shoulders when the object hits one of the photographs on the wall, knocks it loose and the frame crashes to the floor.
“Nothing about this is funny, you fucking lunatic!”
I throw more shit at him, the muscles in my shoulder and arm burning as we circle each other in the room. I can’t understand why he looks so proud of himself. And I absolutely hate how, beneath my rage, there is still a vein of attraction.
Because when Ari smiles, it’s fucking blinding. Staggering, really. Dimples that I never noticed before indenting his cheeks, his grey eyes so bright and clear that they no longer terrify me. Instead, they draw me in.
He’s not supposed to be enjoying this. He’s supposed to be angry. Yet all he does is dodge each weapon I throw, moving his body in such a way that I’m forced to keep backing off until a point when he has me cornered.
Practically dancing through the chaos, Ari makes it clear he has every advantage. Dexterity. Speed. Strength. And a calm mind that is so true in its focus that it only serves to muddy the waters of mine.
And that’s when he attacks finally, when I’m so angry I’m seeing red, when I’m so out of control that I’m making mistakes.
Easily lifting me off my feet, he drops us both to the floor, his knees straddling my hips while he pins my body to the floor.
How he manages it without hurting me, I have no clue, but he does, as if this was his plan all along.
I never stood a chance against him, but rather than beating the shit out of me like Grant would have done, Ari stares down with amusement in his expression, the fight nothing more than foreplay to a man who has no morality at all.
He grabs my wrists and pins them above my head again, his body leaning over, his mouth so close I think he’ll kiss me. I lift my head to bite him, and he backs off just enough to stay close while protecting his face, that damn smile shining down at me as a tease.
“Are you done yet?”
“No!” I scream while he stays perfectly calm. I’m sweating and panting from the exertion, and he looks like he’s just come back from