Jesus Christ.
Hooded blue eyes framed by thick, spiky lashes caught mine, and I sat rigid, completely unmoving, unable to look away. My mouth popped open, silently gasping for air when he eased back out of my space with a grin, seemingly wholly unaffected.
I’d never hated him more. Or myself.
I was beginning to worry I wasn’t immune to Leon Bradshaw’s particular brand of charm.
And suddenly, the prospect of being someone’s prison bitch started to sound appealing.
NINE
LISS
“Shit!” Leon cursed as my tire rolled over a pothole.
Still slightly winded, I drew in a tight breath and turned to see him frowning down at a damp patch on his shirt. He wiped his hand over the fabric a few times and my eyes slid closed.
Give me strength.
“I meant what I said, Bradshaw. You spill that, I’m tossing your ass out.”
His head came up. “Thought the punishment was castration?”
“Yeah, well, it sounded like you might enjoy that, you weirdo, so I changed it up.” I shifted my gaze to the road.
We continued in silence. It stretched on long enough that it became noticeable, and slightly awkward. When I stopped at a red light, I snuck a quick peek at him, only to find him leaning back against the door, his body angled toward me and his darkened gaze pinned to my face. My hands squeezed around the steering wheel.
“Maybe I don’t mind walking.” His fingers tapped a rhythmic beat on his bent knee. “Maybe I just wanted an excuse to be around you, Snow Queen.”
It was the absence of humor in his tone that constricted my airway; the earnest expression on his face that caused my heart to spasm. Our gazes clashed and locked, and I watched his pupils dilate, the black orbs spreading out gradually until they almost eclipsed the blue. The air in the car thickened, a steady hum lingering between us, and when Leon tipped forward, I drew back instinctively.
“Whatever, Pretty Boy,” I said, voice unsteady. My scattered gaze fell to my hands, to the whitened skin stretching taut across my knuckles. I relaxed my grip and gave myself a mental shake.
All this over some fake charm, a sculpted chest, and a few bullshit lines?
I was goddamn better than this. I knew better than this.
Like he hadn’t uttered that line a thousand times, just with a different name.
“Lissa?”
“What?” I jerked my head around.
Steely blue eyes met mine, and Leon inclined his head toward the window. “You can go.”
Shit. I ground my teeth together and rammed my foot down on the gas. In my haste to get the car moving and pretend like he hadn’t totally distracted me with his comment, my back tire clipped the curb and the car lurched forward.
The cup slipped from Leon’s grasp in slow motion, bouncing off his knee and splattering over every visible surface, before falling to the footwell and puddling at his feet.
I smashed my foot down on the brake a nanosecond later and swung the car to the side of the road where it screeched to a halt at an angle. Then I leaned over and surveyed the mess with flared nostrils before turning my glare on Leon. He sat hunched forward in his seat, staring down.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
Fuck was right.
He stretched back slowly, both hands raised in surrender and a grimace painting his face. “Okay, look, I’m sorry.”
Maintaining a calm I didn’t feel, I pointed to the door. “Out.”