him, but he kept her subdued. He didn’t care what she had to say. He didn’t accept excuses.
She knew better.
He’d taught her better.
He expected her to keep up the fight, but she was a timid creature who bent to his intimidation and strength far too easily. That’s why she hadn’t been the one. He broke her too easily.
Boring.
She hadn’t challenged him.
Not the way Liz did.
He unlocked the trunk and lifted the lid. Aubrey found some guts and used her feet to push him back a step before he locked his arm around her waist, held her head back against his shoulder with his hand over her mouth, and said into her ear, “I love it when you fight.”
All the struggle went out of her as tears dripped down her cheeks and wet his hand.
Too bad. When she fought, he got to play.
Her submission took away his fun. She knew he hated that. He wanted her to struggle and fight. She wouldn’t win, but he’d have a damn good time watching her try. He got off seeing how much pain she could endure.
But poor Aubrey had lost her fight and her will long ago.
Weak. Timid. Useless. She disgusted him now.
Clint’s father had tried to make him weak and control his outbursts when he was a kid with the same heavy hand he used on Clint’s mother. She’d been willful and defiant, sometimes crazy, pushing his father’s temper. Dad took control. He made Clint’s mother behave. And when he got tired of disciplining her, he’d moved out, leaving Clint to console his wild mother and keep her in line.
As a weekend father, his dad tried to maintain their relationship, but Clint didn’t much care what his father thought anymore. He didn’t submit to his father’s new tempered discipline, his stupid reasons for why Clint should act and be better, or how he’d tried to tell Clint how to live his life.
Clint did what he wanted, when he wanted.
When he got in trouble in high school because a girl said yes, then she regretted it the next day and reported him to the principal, his father laid into him good. By then, Dad didn’t tower over him anymore. He may have outweighed him, but he didn’t have Clint’s strength and speed. When his father threw that right cross, Clint didn’t cower with his hands up, he blocked that punch and threw one of his own. And then a dozen more, until his father lay on the floor a bloody fucking mess, his nose busted, eyes cut and swollen, whimpering and moaning in pain.
Dad didn’t hit him anymore.
The girl took back her accusation because he’d made it clear she’d regret it if she didn’t. She’d wanted it. And he wouldn’t let her get away with saying otherwise.
From there, his relationship with his father deteriorated until they no longer spoke.
Good riddance. Family sucked.
He didn’t need someone criticizing him and telling him what to do.
Clint wanted a woman equal to him.
Aubrey wasn’t that woman.
But Liz . . . “If you fucked things up for me and Liz . . .” He shoved Aubrey into the trunk, yanked her purse away from her, and slammed the lid.
She kicked and pounded against it, screaming and begging, “Please! Let me out! I didn’t do anything! Let me go!”
Her cries and pleas had no effect on him.
He’d already checked the back of the building. No cameras and only small high windows. He pushed the seat back and slid behind the wheel of her car, confident no one saw or heard anything.
He drove out of the lot and headed for the one place he could get rid of her and make it look like she’d finally lost it.
He went over his conversation with Liz in his head. It went well. He’d consoled her over that fuck, Tate. She realized now that Clint was the right man for her. After he got rid of Aubrey and finished work for the day, he’d give her a call, ask her again if she wanted to go out. Women wanted to be pursued. He’d give her that. For now. Then, they’d get back to the way they were before everyone tried to interfere.
Of course, he’d have to tell her that Aubrey was nothing more than a jealous ex who wanted to make Liz hate him so Aubrey could have him all to herself. Easy enough.
Liz wouldn’t want anyone else to have him, because she wanted him all to herself.
Luck was on his side as he