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He grins. “You ain’t my boss. Caleb is.”
I straighten my back, standing taller to loom over him. “And I’m acting in his stead.”
Hayes rolls his eyes. “I’m not disrespecting anyone. It’s not against the law to appreciate the fine view of a piece of ass I’d like to sample.”
I saw red before, but now my fists tremble from how hard I clench them.
“What, you got a claim on her or something?” he jeers.
I lurch forward, physically struggling with the overpowering need to hit him and put him in his place. I’m not crazy about violence, and I avoid it when I can. Something about this jerk brings out a bloodthirsty side of me.
I seethe. “She’s not some object to leer at.”
“Like you don’t.” He shoves at me, but I don’t budge.
“What I do isn’t your concern.” I don’t stoop to his level and shove him back. I won’t go there. “If you even look like you or your men are talking about her again, you will regret it.”
Hayes scowls and tries to get in my face again. “Are you threatening me?”
“Interpret it as you see fit. Don’t try me.”
He growls and shakes his head. “I’m not going to stand here and listen to some bullshit threat from a weak-ass city boy.”
“Then don’t stand here. Get moving and clean up the fucking tree like you’re told.”
He snarls, muttering curses I don’t care to understand.
Just before we lose it and launch into a physical fight, Aubrey calls out from the porch. “Hey! Dalton? What’s going on?”
She had to have seen it all as Hayes got in my face, or tried to. I don’t doubt that she heard us mouthing off. Hayes was shouting, and I wasn’t in the mood to be talked over like that. Our voices had to have carried far to reach her on the porch since no saws were running yet.
“Nothing,” I call back to her without breaking eye contact with Hayes. It’s a stare-down I won’t lose.
“Dalton?”
I don’t turn at her voice.
“Dalton!” She’s using that voice again. “Come inside.”
I turn then, only because she spoke to me in that firm tone of authority. She used it when I cut my finger, and I told her to leave me be. It’s strict, but not in the way a drill sergeant might bark out orders. I note a sense of impatience with it, like she’s not in the mood to accept anyone’s bullshit. It’s probably how she handles a rowdy and unruly class.
For whatever reason, that specific tone gets to me. First, it ticks me off. No one likes to be told what to do, and it’s that simple form of rebelliousness that makes me want to talk back to her. But more than that, I feel incredibly turned on at the same time. Meeting a woman who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to make it happen is sexy as hell. She’s not a dominant woman, but that tone suggests she’s sassy and has the backbone to support her attitude when she needs to let it out.
I glare back at Hayes, giving him a nonverbal warning with the sternness of my expression. I mean it. If he tries to stir up any more trouble, he will regret it. Mark my words.
I walk away, though, heading inside to speak with Aubrey.
As I leave the crude contractor, I hear him laughing with his men again. “She sure has you on a short leash, rich boy.”
One man pipes up around chuckles. “Hey, man. I’d let that chick put me on a leash anytime.”
I stomp up the steps, battling with the fury that rises within me from their words. I’m so furious I want to rip the world apart, but instead, I take the calmer option of going to her and seeing what she wants to say about all of this.
I was itching for her to reach out to me, to initiate talking to me. All day I was eager to hear her voice, but not like this. Not if she thinks she’s going to use that sassy, strict, and somehow sexy voice to talk me out of caring about what those men—any men—say about her in a predatory way like that.
She’s made it clear that she considers sleeping with me was a mistake. She’s not mine to protect, but I refuse to stop now.
Chapter 18
