Page 23

“Don’t encourage her,” Clay snaps.

“I don’t need encouraging,” I tell him. “I am doing just fine on my own.”

Clay shoves my face into the dirt again, and I laugh as he presses in behind me. I can feel every inch of him; he is clearly enjoying this just as much as I am.

“Are you going to keep grinding on me, or are you going to tell me what your plan is?”

“The plan,” he says, close to my ear, “is that you are going to stay down here until you learn some manners.”

I laugh—I can’t help it. “Clay, I’ve been down here three minutes, and I’ve already winded you. What makes you think time is going to fix things?”

“I like her,” Vero announces. “I know I keep saying it, but I really, really like her. Brawley, can we keep her? I want to keep her.”

“Nobody is keeping anyone,” Clay snaps, his grip tightening in my hair. “She is going to apologize, go home, and never come back.”

“Wow,” I say. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Clearly you have never met a woman before.”

Vero cackles, and Brawley makes a sound that tells me he is trying very hard not to laugh too.

“You want to run that by me again?” Clay says.

“I mean this very sincerely,” I tell him, “but do you genuinely think I am going to apologize to you? In a grave that you pushed me into while you press your obvious erection into my back?” I pause for dramatic effect. “You have never once in your life successfully handled a woman, have you?”

I know Clay has probably fucked a lot of women—the asshole is sin on legs—but I doubt he has ever really dealt with a woman who pushes back and doesn’t take his bullshit.

“I could make you apologize,” he says.

“You could try.”

“Clay.” Brawley sighs. “She’s been down there five minutes, you’re losing.”

“I am not losing. I’m making a point.”

“What point?” Vero asks. “From up here it looks like you’re holding a woman against a dirt wall while she makes fun of you.”

“Vero, I swear to god. Shut up,” Clay growls.

“No, he’s right,” I say. “That’s exactly what is happening.”

Clay makes a sound low in his throat, and his hand in my hair loosens, releasing slightly before it drops to the back of my neck. His palm is warm and his thumb presses into the base of my skull. It’s worse than the hair pulling because it doesn’t hurt, and I don’t want to think about why my body responds the way it does.

“You think this is funny?” he whispers, so only I can hear him.

“You know it is, and I think that’s why you’re furious.”

From above, Brawley’s voice, stripped of any amusement, barks out, “Vero.”

“Mmm?”

“You fucked her,” Brawley growls. “And you locked the door so I couldn’t get in.”

Vero looks up at Brawley. His expression is entirely too unbothered for a man who swallowed a handcuff key and is currently attached to a stranger trapped in a hole in the ground. “I was going to explain.”

“Were you?”