Trick doesn’t turn in my direction, or even flinch to acknowledge that I’ve just spoken. The brunette smirks. The fucking bitch actually smirks! And because she’s just that stupid, she sits up straighter, arching her back and shoving her silicon balloons within an inch of Trick’s chest. I don’t need an Urban Dictionary from Jade to know that this bitch is gonna die!
I push off the counter and march up next to Trick. “I’m going to get a few groceries,” I say through gritted teeth while wrapping my hand around stupid’s wrist and removing it from Trick’s pocket.
“You did not just touch me?” She raises her brows like I’ve committed a crime.
Trick finally looks over at me then down at my hand clenched around her wrist. “Darby,” he warns.
I release her wrist. “Yes,” I smile, batting my lashes at him.
“I don’t know who she thinks she is, but if she touches me again—”
Trick holds up his finger to her while looking at me. “Darby was just leaving.”
My eyes go wide while cocking my head to the side. “I was?”
“Groceries … go.”
Trick may not want to make waves, but if he doesn’t put an end to this I’m going to be the goddamn tsunami that does.
The brunette smirks and … No way! How many shades of stupid is this broad? Her hand goes back to his pocket.
“If you want all your fingers to work when you walk out of here, I suggest you keep your hands. To. Yourself!” I grab her hand with a little more force.
“Hands off, bitch!” she yells, yanking her wrist from my grasp.
“Darby!” Trick growls.
“You get your hands off, bitch!” I try to wedge myself between her and Trick, getting up in her face.
Trick wraps his arms around me from behind, lifting me off my feet.
“Let me go!” I yell.
“Quiet!” he grinds in my ears while hauling me off toward the back. Opening the infamous storage closet door, he drops me and slams the door behind us.
I whip around, hands fisted, jaw clenched. “She’s groping you!”
“You’re making a scene.” He leans forward toward my face.
I stand by my original claim. “She’s. Groping. You!”
“She’s a fly on my ass. When I’m working I don’t notice so it doesn’t matter.”
I shove his chest, forcing him to step back until his back hits the door. “It matters to me!”
He shakes his head. “I’ve got to get back out there. We’ll discuss this later.”
“Don’t you dare walk away from me!” I warn as he turns to open the door.
“Or what?”
I draw in a shaky breath. “Or you’ll break my fucking heart. Because somewhere over the past few months I got the impression that you love me.”
His shoulders slump, back still to me.
“And when Grady invited all those people over you said these hands, only these hands. Was that a lie?”
His hand moves back, clasping mine. I close my eyes. As frustrating as Trick can be, it will never go unnoticed by me just how much he gives of himself to me. Sometimes it’s more than I think he really has to give. But even for him, I will not be a doormat.
He opens the door and leads me out to an obviously perturbed brunette. Pulling up another stool off to his right, he keeps hold of my hand while I climb up on it. Brunette tries to burn a hole in my skull with her evil eyes as Trick brings his mouth to my ear.
“I do love you.”
He releases my hand and gives his focus back to her. My heart stands idle in my chest as her hand reaches for his pocket.
“Hands off,” Trick says while rouging her cheeks.
He resuscitates my heart. Her whole body goes rigid as all the color drains from her shocked face. I don’t give her another glance. There’s only one person in this room worthy of my attention—Trick … only Trick.
He finishes up, takes her money, and locks the door after she leaves. When he turns, my lips turn up into a sheepish smile. He walks back to me with that damn unreadable look. Hands go straight to my hair as he leans down and rubs his nose against mine. I slip my hands under his shirt, and he steps closer as I slide them up his back, digging my fingers into him. A silent claim that he is in fact mine.
“Darby?”
Here comes the lecture.
I close my eyes as his lips ghost over mine. “Hmm?”
“Marry me.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
3 Days Earlier
I’m not proud of looking through Darby’s phone contacts, but I need something I can’t ask her for—answers. Right now, there’s only one person who I know has them.
“Rachel Hart,” she answers her phone in an exasperated voice.
“How do you know me?”
Her silence confirms my suspicions.
“Who is this?”
“How did we meet?”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“Stop lying to me!”
She sighs with impatience. “I met you when my stepdaughter brought you to dinner.”