arm that rested on the center console, the shaken exhale finally escaped me. My skin felt hot at our connection, like I could be consumed with his fire just from that innocent touch.
“You mean it?” I asked him, watching him from the corner of my eye as he drove us to school.
“Yep,” he said simply.
“But what about Johnny Jack’s men?”
He shrugged. “They already know about you. The jig is up. I’m done acting.”
I swallowed hard. I couldn’t even fathom that this was happening. I’d had a crush on Rogue for years, but he’d never seen me like that, so I’d just settled for being his friend. And then everything had happened with our fall-out, then the angry, intense sex… and now this. I didn’t know how to settle it all in my mind.
“Stop thinking so hard, Scar.”
He even knew what I was saying when I was silent.
I cleared my throat and looked over at him. “Rogue?”
He looked over at me. “Yeah?”
“Don’t hurt me again.”
His intense eyes didn’t falter. “I won’t.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“A gentleman doesn’t sit first, order first, or eat first, Mr. Hammond!” Mrs. Brodie, Bonham’s socialite mother, said while slapping Clay’s hand as he reached for another chocolate cookie near him.
I wondered how many of these so-called dinner table rules we’d be forced to swallow in our one hour table manners session. Mrs. Brodie’s button-up pastel dress was as rigid as her views on femininity, and if it were possible to have literal eyes in the back of one’s head, she’d have them.
Clayton scowled before licking his fingers, earning yet another dissatisfied hiss from the uptight socialite. If rolling eyes were an Olympic sport, Clay would have gotten the gold medal by now. Maybe I should have felt bad about dragging him to class, but I was too busy laughing at how miserable he was. He had preconceived notions about what it meant to be my date to this Junior Debutante dance, and attending cotillion class nipped away his eagerness with one snap of Mrs. Brodie’s fingers.
“I thought you said there would be food here. I didn’t realize you were making me learn which fucking fork to use,” he whisper-yelled at me before reaching for the cookie once more. The moment his fingers circled the perfectly-baked sphere, Mrs. Brodie swiveled in her heels to scowl at him.
“We’ll eat it eventually. You just have to let me eat first,” I giggled.
“Well I was hoping that it would at least be worth my while,” he growled under his breath before dropping the uneaten cookie back on the silver platter in front of him. I stifled a laugh.
I had to beg Rogue to let me take Clay. Despite everything, I wasn’t ready to completely let him back in just yet. At school, he walked proudly with me on his arm, growling at anyone that dared to call me “trash” or look at me wrong. And it was nice—don’t get me wrong. But just a week ago, it was him doing all those nasty things to me. And even though our bodies were more than ready to forgive, forget, and fuck, my heart was still a little gun shy.
He conceded, only because Godfrey called during the drive over here to say that they had a lead on a possible out on this whole situation, and since I wasn’t allowed to be alone, he allowed Clay to attend.
“This is such sexist bullshit,” Clay mumbled under his breath, and I had to hold back a laugh.
A slap between my shoulderblades reminded me to stop slouching and I shot up with sharp surprise. Mrs. Brodie was a hellion with that damn ruler.
“Why am I doing this again?” Clay asked while looking around the room. “None of these girls look even remotely fuckable.”
I bit back a laugh. None of us did, really. Part of being a Junior Debutante meant that we had to wear oversized, white dresses that weighed as much as we did while hiding our best assets. “A lady holds her head high, but never her nose, Miss Palmisano,” Mrs. Brodie sneered to Stephanie while stepping forward to shift the fork on Stephanie’s place setting a millimeter over, like the slightest crookedness of the silver could cause a world war.
“Are you going to tell me why I got a call from your not-boyfriend about keeping an eye on you today?” Clay asked while taking a sip of tea. He was holding his pinky up and looking ridiculous while doing it. “I thought you two were enemies