“Please don’t tell me—” The wind picked up and his scent hit me like a sack of rocks. Square in the face. With the force of a hurricane. “Oh, fuck no. This isn’t possible. Not three of you. Someone is playing games with me.”
The man laughed, and the sound rippled through my core like a warm burst of water. “I don’t know what you mean, but yeah, I realize there is a bond between us. Don’t worry, though. I’m not bonding material, and I have the willpower to walk away from this. Especially since you don’t seem to be overjoyed by the feeling, either. I’m Cole, by the way. What’s your name?”
I hesitated. Was it possible one of these males would just leave me be? It didn’t seem likely, but it didn’t feel like he was trying to be deceitful. “If I don’t tell you my name, can you walk away from me now and not come back?”
“Ouch.” He clutched his chest and pretended to be offended. “Is it really going to hurt you to give me a name, so I know who to avoid in the future? I mean, if I plan on going to a party and someone says, this girl named, insert your name here darling, is going to be there, I’ll know to not waste my time. But, if you don’t tell me, I’ll show up and we will have to dance around each other all night. Wouldn’t it just be easier for all who are involved to give me that little piece of information?”
This one was a smooth talker. That was for damned sure. “My name is Dahlia. And for the record, I don’t go to parties. The chances of us running into each other in any kind of social setting are slim to none. Your party life is safe from me.”
His mouth turned up in a sultry grin. “A woman like you would have the pick of the room if you did go to parties. You’d never have to hunt again. Men would fall over themselves to eat at your feet.”
“I don’t have trouble anyway. Please, I’ve had a really bad day, and this isn’t helping.”
“No problem.” Cole shoved his hands in his pockets, and my gaze fell to the ink etched on his knuckles. A caricature of a demon glared at me from his right hand, while an angelic-looking woman gazed at me from the left. Odd choice of tattoos. “I can tell when I’m not wanted. For the record, when you’re crying like that, your scent travels further. The emotion called to me on a primal level. I just wanted to see where it was coming from, and darling, you might be my bonded mate or whatever, but you are so not my type. I don’t care for good girls, and you have good written all over you. I hope our paths don’t cross again.”
He turned, ran a hand through his messy hair, and walked away. His ass filled every possible space in the back of his jeans and my mouth watered thinking about how it would clench as he drilled into me. For fuck’s sake, Dahlia. Get a grip.
“Didn’t I tell you to wait in the car?” Sterling’s voice startled me, sending my heart into palpitations beyond my control.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that!” I cursed.
“If you were in the goddamn car like you were told, you wouldn’t have been startled.” His anger was apparent on the chiseled set of his jaw. “You are really bad at following instructions.”
“You’re really good at bossing me around.”
“Really?” He crossed his arms, and it made me remember the way Cole had done it moments before. “We are going to do this now? Was seeing that man upstairs not enough for you to know you need to be careful? Is it too much to ask for you to listen to the voice of reason?”
Guilt flooded my face. He wasn’t wrong. His arrogance made me wish he was, but he wasn’t.
“Please take me home.”