“What?”
“The key. I don’t want you in my space.”
He’s right. He really doesn’t. I’m a snoop. But hello? After everything he’s done to me over the years, I have the freaking right to look through his stuff.
“Trust me, being in your space is the last thing I want. Who knows what prank you’ll play on me?”
“Prank.”
That word in my mouth didn’t sound nearly as dangerous as it does in his. It’s the way his lips and his tongue molded around the word and gave it a life. A dangerous kind of life, and suddenly, I’m bombarded with all these ideas. Of what he can do to me.
Swallowing, I look at the curl of his biceps. They are huge.
He could crush me, if he wanted. He could wrap his large arms around me, restrain me with his body, cover me and hide me under him. And it would take days for someone to find me.
“Yes.” I clear my throat, my eyes still stuck to his rippling muscles, as my lungs are running out of air. “If you’re thinking of locking me up in here, I’ll have you know that they’re looking for me. My friend, she knows I’m up here and if I don’t show up for lunch, she’s going to call 911.”
“Good to know.”
His mocking tone makes me look away and at his face. “I’m not kidding.”
I kinda am but he doesn’t need to know that. If I don’t show up for lunch, Tina will think I’m still finishing up my duties. No one’s coming for me.
“Neither am I,” he says. “Now, if you’re done fucking around, I want the key back.”
“I can’t give you the key,” I say, exasperatedly. “You know Mrs. Stewart? She’s my boss and she’s freaking weird about them.”
“I don’t care.”
Asshole.
I clutch my sides, as if protecting the keys inside my pocket. “I’m not getting fired because you have privacy issues.”
As soon as I say it, I realize what this is. My worst fear is coming true. This is all a ploy to get me fired.
I knew it.
Boring his eyes into me, he leans closer. He’s practically hanging over me, like a dark shadow.
“Getting you fired is the last thing on my mind. Where would be the fun in that?” he says, reading my thoughts and making me breathless.
Thoughtless.
“Besides, if I want, I can fire you right now. In case you forgot the conversation we had last night, you do as I say. I’m the boss of your boss.” He extends his arm. “Give me the fucking keys.”
He didn’t look as threatening then as he does in the light of day. Could be because last night, we were out in the open and right now, we’re here, so fucking close to each other.
With his thing in between us.
Like a puppet, I look at his arm. My gaze hooks on to something that wasn’t there before.
It’s a tattoo, a sentence running along one side of his wrist: I can cross the line.
“You never had that in school…” I trail off.
“Give me the fucking keys before I take them,” he grits out, ignoring my asinine sentence.
I whip my eyes up at him. His frown is fierce. Scary.
Biting my lip, I fish the keys out of my pocket and drop them onto his open palm. But that’s not the only thing I drop. As I take a deep breath of relief thinking that now he’ll let me go, my other fist opens, as well.
And out comes the double pack of Marlboros that I stole from him.
Zach looks down at it, and then up at me. I must look like a trapped animal, all wide eyes and panting breaths.
A frisson of current flashes across his eyes. “Are you stealing from me, Blue?”
“No.”
“No?”
I shake my head, panicked. “N-no.”
Zach looks at my hair. It’s messily braided and pushed away from my face because Mrs. S doesn’t like loose strands.
“So are you saying that some things do change? You’re not a thief anymore?”
My heart bangs in my chest at the mention of the word thief.
He and his minions used to call me that back in school. In fact, Zach started calling me that the very first day we met in detention. All because I borrowed someone’s carrot sticks without asking. I replaced them the next day. Not that anyone cares about that.
I lick my sweaty lips. “No, I wasn’t stealing.”
Keeping his eyes on me, he tosses the keys over his shoulder. They land somewhere on the floor with a clatter that makes me flinch.
Somehow, having both his hands free has tipped the situation from terrible to catastrophic.
“Do you know what happens to little thieves like you?” he asks, softly, running his eyes up and down my body again.
A body that’s exploding. My skin is flushed and riddled with goose bumps. They are so sharp that it’s painful.