to the topic at hand. “Opinion versus fact, Carson.”
Sliding my hand up her midsection between her tits, I press my touch into her chest over her heart. Splaying my fingers, it beats into my palm. “This isn’t ugly. This is beautiful. It means you’re alive and here with me, where you belong.”
Her glare follows as I stand and my hand moves farther north, my thumb landing on her jugular. She doesn’t flinch, she’s as controlled and tempered as ever on the outside, but her pulse races like it’s on the home stretch of a marathon.
She’s tall but I still tower over her as she stands barefoot in front of me. Pulling our bodies flush, her cutting eyes narrow when I drop my hand to her ass. My dick betrays me—the bastard—twitching as his only magnet in this world wakes him.
I press into her neck and tip her face to mine. “Don’t be critical about your body, Donnelly. Not to me. You know how I feel about it and you.”
She shakes her head and pushes my hand away but I hold her close because my dick might kick my ass if I let her go. “I’m not the naïve woman I once was—overtaken by your charmless self. Our attraction was purely fueled by adrenaline and our jobs. It’s time to get over yourself.”
I shake my head and tsk her. “Lies. You can spew them to everyone else on the planet but not to me.”
“I only speak the truth.” Her tone is cutting.
I hitch a shoulder and my smile has nothing to do with pleasure of any sort, no matter how much I’d kill for some pleasure right now, especially the kind only Isabella Donnelly can give.
No.
My smile is as cutting as her tone and has checkmate written all over it. “I’ve had a day, baby. But I got you into the fucking Everglades bullshit.”
Her tone softens, ironically hardening my dick further. “You did?”
I might do it lightly because of her wound, but I press my cock into her lower stomach. “You’re questioning my skills?”
She brings her hands up to my chest and tries to push, but my dick is more determined than the both of us and refuses to be torn away from its one true obsession. “Of course not. But that was fast.”
“Not only did I come through but I scored two tickets. You’ve got yourself a date.”
Back to cutting she goes. “No.”
“Yes. And I’m holding your fucking ticket hostage. I’ll give it to you but you have to meet certain guidelines.”
Her fingers fist my shirt in a way I bet she wishes it were my flesh. “Why must everything be a negotiation? This is important to me and yet you insist on acting like a rotten arse.”
“As poignant a picture as that paints, it’s not me being the smelly ass, it’s my father. I took him to the shed for a talk as soon as I got home tonight and that talk was a one-way street. In fact, it was more of a tongue lashing for how he’s treated you. He knows where I stand and how far I’m willing to fight him on this, which is to the fucking edge of the earth, baby. Which is also why—since I hold your very literal golden ticket—there will be rules in this house or else the damn Everglades will have to struggle on without any love from you.”
Bella doesn’t blush. Blushing is for skittish school girls. But when she’s not undercover and it’s just her and me, her anger shows like a branding iron.
Case in point, her fair skin reddening to flames right before my eyes. “Spit out your fucking rules, Cole. When you’re finished, I’ll kick rubbish on your grave right after I stick a pitchfork in it with a sign attached, reading Here Lies a Selfish Cock.”
My smile splits my face. “Baby, you give new meaning to bitchy-proper speak. Selfish Cock isn’t even one of your British-isms.”
“I’m livid,” she bites. “You know you have me squeezed. I’ve no options and, yet, you take advantage. Spit out these rules before I bust open my fresh wound whilst kneeing you in the balls.”
I pause and wet my lips. “You know that turns me on.”
“You know I don’t give an English fuck. Not even an Uncle Sam fuck. Nor a flying one over the pond between the two.”
“Damn.” I pull her to me tighter. “You’re making my boys blue.”
She tips her head. “I hope they turn celestial and fall off.”