Instead, he was blackmailing a woman who clearly had no interest in doing a damned thing about the attraction burning between them like wildfire.
And it was there. It sparked and exploded every time they were within seeing distance of each other. He could see her response to it. The widening of her eyes, the accelerated breathing, her hard little ni**les pressing beneath her clothing and a wild flush to her creamy cheeks. She wanted him almost as damned bad as he wanted her, but she was denying it, fighting it with everything inside her, and Dawg wanted to know why.
He knew women. They didn’t fight something that strong without a damned good reason. Now, he just had to figure out the reason.
Breathing out roughly, he moved upstairs to his own shower and quickly stripped before stepping beneath the spray.
He showered quickly. He didn’t want to give her time to run. He wanted to give her time to think, though––to consider her options as they stood.
She wanted him, that much he knew. Wanted him enough that the whole time she was arguing the deal, her ni**les were pressing harder beneath her shirt and her gaze was flashing with a subtle spark of lust.
Dawg had made it a point to know women before he had any business knowing them. Too young and too dumb to even understand why, he had been drawn to their softness, their veneer of sweetness.
The dark undercurrents of passion, power plays, and feminine wiles.
Women who were the exact opposite of his cold-blooded, crazy mother. Women who gave soft touches and whimpered for the pleasure he gave them. Who reached for him, who whispered his name in ecstasy rather than cursing it in hatred.
He knew how to read them, how to pleasure them.
And he knew that look of veiled hunger they gave to indicate their willingness to be pleasured.
Oh yeah, Crista wanted him, but for some reason she wasn’t willing to accept the fact that he was there for the taking.
Dawg grinned at the thought as he quickly toweled dry and dressed. The cotton briefs and sweats did nothing to hide the hard-on raging beneath the soft material. Pulling on a clean T-shirt, he moved back downstairs, his gaze roving around the dimly lit room as he searched for her.
And there she was. His T-shirt draped past her thighs as she sat nervously on the couch, her long hair still a little damp. She had obviously made use of the blow-dryer he kept in the guest bathroom.
Beautiful long, thick, dark chocolate hair that fell to the middle of her back and gave her a waiflike appearance.
Damn, she was small. Barely five feet six inches tall in her bare feet, with delicate bones and a nicely rounded figure. She wasn’t stick skinny, and he liked that, though he was well aware of the delicacy of her body in comparison to his.
Her face was still pale, her eyes too dark, but she looked composed. Hell, she looked like she was heading to the gallows rather than his bed.
“You aren’t the best salve to my ego, fancy-face,” he told her as he moved through the room, watching her with an edge of amusement.
She rose slowly to her feet.
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”
She had never liked being called fancy-face, but that was how he saw her. Her face was a little irregular, her lips pouty and winsome, her nose pert with the slightest little tilt, and high, glorious cheekbones.
She was different in a way that stood out. She wasn’t beautiful in the acceptable sense of the word, rather she was eye-catching, mysterious. Unique.
“Why?” He glanced at the clock and almost winced. Damn, it was nearly two in the morning; no wonder she looked like she had been run over by a truck. She was exhausted. And so was he.
Now, if he could just convince his c**k how tired he was.
“Because I hate nicknames,” she retorted.
Dawg shook his head. “Look, it’s damned late. I just had a killer day, and from the looks of it, yours wasn’t any better. Let’s sleep on this, then we’ll see how things look in the morning.”
She licked her lips warily. “In separate beds?”
“In your dreams,” he grunted back. “Damn it, Crista, stop waffling like a damned little sissy. Either you’re going to f**k me or you’re not. Let’s get this over with now so we can both get some sleep.”
“I haven’t decided yet.” Crista narrowed her eyes on Dawg, considering the irritation in his expression and the flash of lust in his gaze.
She was trying to keep her eyes off the erection clearly displayed beneath his sweatpants. Okay, she had already made her decision. Sort of.
She was furious over it. It wasn’t enough that she had tried to stay out of his way, that she had rebuffed every overture he had made. Now he had to take the decision away from her, force her to risk her heart to him again, knowing the outcome.
As the minutes had ticked by, she had only become angrier as she showered. It had taken her years to put him behind her enough to even date another man. And still, when the nights were the darkest, she felt the same ragged pain and loss that she had felt that summer, as clearly as she had felt it then.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “You haven’t, huh? What are you waiting for?”
Crista clenched her teeth in anger. “I’ll sleep with you.”
His brow arched.
“But I won’t just spread myself for you, Dawg. I can’t just f**k you like that.”
“Spread yourself?” he asked softly, his voice dark as his gaze narrowed back at her. “Like what, Crista?”
“Like one of your damned playmates,” she bit out.
The more he stared at her like that, the more angry she became. Nerves, exhaustion, and the fallout from terror were crashing through her system. On top of that, she had to deal with blackmail by a man she could have never expected blackmail from.
“You are my playmate now.” He grinned back at her, his expression becoming one of intense satisfaction. “And I do like to play, Crista. You should be aware of that by now.”
“Aware of it!” The anger snapped through her then. “Dawg, I was aware of it eight damned years ago when you decided you were drunk enough and horny enough to f**k me without your cousins standing by to join in. I’m not the one that forgot that f**king night; you are.”
Horror slammed through her. Her hand clapped over her mouth, and the breath stilled in her throat as his expression slowly stilled from amusement, then shock, then outright fury.
She had never seen Dawg mad. Few people had ever seen Dawg really mad. Crista had only heard of it, and she had decided long ago she never wanted to see it.