that. Had been for a while. “Maybe I will later.” Without thought, he reached out and wound a strand of her hair around his finger like he’d often imagined doing. “So soft.” The smell of her vanilla shampoo tickled his senses. “I like your hair long. You used to always have it short.”
“Thanks,” mumbled Jaime, a little thrown. Uncomfortable by the intensity in his gaze, she looked away, casually scanning the restaurant. She almost growled as her attention fell upon a particular female—a female who was glaring at her with utter hatred in her eyes as Dante fiddled with her hair. “Well, well, well, look who’s here.”
Following her gaze, Dante growled. Glory. He was tempted to confront her—not harm her, he would never harm a female. But he was interested in ensuring that she understood just how pissed he was.
“Don’t,” said Jaime gently, earning his attention. “All you’ll gain from it is losing our pack’s alliance with Nick. Let him deal with her.” In truth, Jaime wasn’t convinced that Nick would be able to do much. The fact was that Glory was a law unto herself.
Jaime wasn’t a person who looked down on others, but with Glory it was impossible not to.
The girl was kind of like a doorknob—everyone got a turn. That, combined with her penchant for spreading false gossip and her love of stealing other people’s boyfriends, made for a very toxic person.
“How come you never did that whole ‘I told you so’?” She had told him so, had warned him that Glory was poisonous and he’d do better to avoid her. His own instincts had told him that, too.
But he’d been so hot and hard for the female sitting opposite him, and he’d needed a reprieve. Glory had happened to be there when he most needed it.
“I figure you’ve learned your lesson without me rubbing salt in the wound. Besides, it wasn’t a surprise that you didn’t listen. You’ve always thought with your dick.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes, it is.”
“In that case, do you wanna blow my mind?”
Jaime smiled. “You got that from Dominic, didn’t you?”
“Maybe.” He laughed.
That gruff laugh was like a caress. God, how pitiful was she to be lusting after someone who didn’t want her! Maybe she could have gotten past it if it wasn’t more like a craving than a lusting. It reminded her of that feeling she got when she was unbelievably hungry and all she could think about eating was chocolate; that always made no sense to her, as it wasn’t like chocolate would ease the hunger or was good for her, and yet still she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Only instead of the hunger being in her belly, it was somewhere much lower, and instead of chocolate, it was Dante.
Thankfully, he seemed to accept that she wasn’t going to answer his questions and simply drove her back to pack territory. Or, at least, he seemed to accept it for now. No doubt he’d do as he said and pester her. While she was confident that she wouldn’t let anything slip, she still couldn’t help but worry that he would catch her at an extremely weak moment—like when she was so damn aroused that he’d be able to smell it and all she’d be able to think about was jumping on him. Her objective would have to be to spend as little time with him as possible, she decided. That and address her hungry libido this weekend before she broke down and assaulted him.
After three days of nothing more than polite smiles and having Jaime expertly avoid his company and questions, Dante was at a point where he wanted nothing more than to strap Jaime to a chair and torture her secret out of her. He could liken his experiences with Jaime to the act of holding a fish—it was smaller and weaker and therefore should be easy to grab and restrain, but it had a way of slipping out of his grip and going on its merry way.
Whereas in the beginning his motive to uncover her secret had been concern, the whole thing was now more of an obsession. It hadn’t been long before his frustrations had overridden his males-shouldn’t-intimidate-females ethic. And what had she done in response when he demanded that she tell him? Patted him on the head and sang, “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” The female was killing him.
Her attempts to avoid him were helped along by how demanding his job was. Still, each afternoon over