“Let me go, Dawg! I have to go job hunting,” she sneered with false sweetness. “Someone cost me this job.”
Mocking disbelief filled his face. “No! Someone got you fired? Shame on them.”
Wicked amusement filled his eyes, almost playful, inviting her to share in the fun when he had just taken her only means of support.
When she jerked her wrist back this time, he let her go.
“Tell me, Dawg, how do you expect me to support myself? To pay my bills? To keep my car? I don’t have a job now because of you.”
“You have a job.” The playful amusement left his expression.
“I have a job?” she jeered bitterly. “Let me guess, you’re going to pay me to play your whore?”
His expression stilled then. “Get in the truck.”
She should have been nervous. She had seen that expression on her brother’s face before, and it was one that was best avoided. One she would have avoided if she weren’t so damned mad.
She knew what he expected, and it enraged her.
“Not on your egotistical little life!” Her hand slapped against his chest as she felt anger engulf her.
“I have a job to—”
The breath rushed from her chest as he jerked her to him, her br**sts flush against his broad chest, the fingers of one broad hand tangled in her hair as he pulled her head back, his gaze imprisoning hers as she stared back at him in shock.
“We made a deal.” His voice rasped with something akin to anger, and yet it went deeper than anger.
Crista trembled as she stared into the light green eyes and the determination that glowed inside them.
“That deal didn’t include stealing my job and my life. You had no right to do this.”
“My bed, or jail. My terms. And my terms say that while you’re sharing my bed, then by God you
’ll share when I want you there, not when you have time for me.”
Shock filled her, and not for the first time. This wasn’t the Dawg she had known eight years before, but he was the man who had taken her that night so long ago.
The veneer of teasing charm had been stripped away, and in its place was a man she wasn’t certain she could handle.
“You won’t arrest me.” Her voice trembled. “You know I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
“We have a deal,” he repeated. “Now get your ass in that truck. We’ll discuss the terms of it back at the houseboat, but we will not discuss them here, in the middle of a goddamned parking lot.”
He didn’t give her time to argue. He picked her up by her waist, turned, and pushed her into the vehicle.
“My clothes…” She tried to scramble back out, only to come face-to-face with eyes that began to become turbulent in their color. Light greens, sparks of darker color, a swirl of chaotic shades that had her suddenly stilling.
His jaw bunched with tension, the muscle in his cheek twitching twice before he managed to control it.
The keys were plucked from her fingers.
“Don’t move. So help me God, you come out of that truck, Crista, and you’ll regret it. Because I’
ll turn you over my knee and paddle your ass here and now. Do you understand me?”
She stared back at him warily.
He stomped, literally stomped the short distance to her Rodeo, unlocked it, and dragged her suitcase from the front seat.
“My flowers.” Her voice gained strength. If all she was risking was a spanking, then he could damned well get everything she had packed. “And the box in the back.”
The suitcase thumped on the ground as he turned and stared back at her broodingly.
“Surely I can at least have the few things I need.” She smiled back at him tightly. “Even condemned prisoners get a few personal articles, Dawg.”
His eyes narrowed before he locked the driver’s side door and slammed it closed. He paced to the back of the vehicle, unlocked the hatchback, and jerked it open. The box of extra clothes, makeup, and personal items was set out, then the miniature rosebush and flowering cactus that sat in the corner.
Slamming the hatchback closed again, he locked it and packed her items in the backseat of his truck.
“Move over.” His voice was harsh as he stepped to the opened door once again.
“I need my car.”
“I said move over.”
“You can’t just leave my car sitting here, Dawg, I need it.” She forced herself not to scream in complete frustration. “This is going too damned far…”
He gripped her waist, and before Crista could fight him he had lifted her over the console and dropped her into the passenger side seat before climbing in.
Damn him. She gripped the door latch with every intention of throwing herself from the truck and reclaiming her precious Rodeo.
“Open that door, and so help me, you’ll regret it.”
She stilled at the sound of his voice, turning to glare at him furiously as he put the truck in gear and turned the monster vehicle around.
“I need my car.”
“Natches can collect it later.” One hand tightened on the steering wheel, the other on the gearshift that rose from the floor as he drove from the parking lot and turned back onto Main Street before heading for the interstate.
“That’s not fair. None of this is fair, Dawg,” she yelled. “You stole my job. That’s the same as stealing everything I own.”
And that wasn’t much, admittedly. Mainly the Rodeo, but it was the thought that counted.
“I’ll take care of your bills,” he bit out.
“Why not just stamp whore on my head,” she sneered.
The truck was jerked to the side of the road, rocking to a hard stop as he turned to her, the effort to control whatever rose inside him visibly apparent on his face.
“Call yourself a whore again, and I’ll make sure that spanking you have yet to receive is nothing pleasant,” he snarled between clenched teeth.
“What do you call it then?”
“I call it a deal you made and agreed to.” He spoke with hard deliberation as his eyes speared into hers. “And I make the rules. You don’t. Now sit back, fasten your seat belt, and stop arguing the point with me before I do something guaranteed to show everyone who passes by this truck just how little I care about propriety or their f**king opinions of either of us.”
Which amounted to nothing, and Crista knew it. Gritting her teeth against the furious words rising to her lips, she slammed the seat belt latch in, crossed her arms over her br**sts, and stared straight ahead.