Fate Book

With his enormous stature, he easily slipped into the driver’s seat. “I’m not your toy. We won’t be having sex.”

“Who said I wanted to?” I retorted with disgust.

Your dreams said you wanted to.

Shut up!

He shoved the key into the ignition and twisted. “I’m not making out with you either. I don’t believe in any form of intimate contact with a minor.”

Where had all this come from? “First off, I’m eighteen. Second, I never asked you to touch me—I happen to like guys who are human. And third, I didn’t even ask you into my life.”

“Right.” He shifted into first and released the clutch. “Then why the hell am I here, Dakota?”

Ummm…“Damned good question.”

“Don’t start,” he grumbled over the loud engine.

“Grumpy much? If all that phone hacking puts you in such a bad mood, maybe you shouldn’t do it,” I spouted back.

He completely ignored my hacking comment and mumbled something about not getting any sleep for several days because someone had insisted on staying at her house. I guessed that someone was me. And I guessed that meant he had been camped outside my house the entire weekend, as I suspected.

“You could’ve come inside and taken a nap on the couch,” I said as we pulled up to a stop sign.

Why did I say that? And why did I find myself wishing he had?

He gazed at me from behind those black lenses. “Trust me,” he replied in a deep, slow voice, “I wanted to.” He looked ahead. “But you needed your rest. Although, you don’t seem to get much.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I was sure he hadn’t intended his response to sound loaded with sexual innuendo, which is exactly how my body interpreted it. My heart began to accelerate and my belly filled with prickles.

Wait. He’s doing that sexual power play thing to me again. Regardless, I couldn’t deny it had an effect. My body was simply all too willing to play along, to play with him.

I smiled, masking my inappropriate thoughts. “Well, thank you. Because I slept like a baby.” Obviously, I hadn’t, but he didn’t know that. Or maybe he did if he’d been watching me. My bedroom light had been on all night.

Regardless, he didn’t reply.

Minutes later, Santiago’s truck roared into the school parking lot, our awkward silence a contrast to the obnoxious, vintage muscle truck.

“Why are you parking?” I asked.

He put the truck into neutral, pulled the brake, and turned off the engine. “I’m taking you to class. What the hell does it look like?”

He hopped out and walked around to my side.

“C’mon.” He held out his arms as if he were going to catch me like a toddler jumping from the swings at the park.

I frowned. “Back off.”

He grumbled and did as I asked.

Only a narrow space separated our bodies as I slid from the truck, and I could’ve sworn he radiated some sort of sexual energy, because my body reacted instantly: goose bumps, neck hair standing at full attention, girl parts begging me to zero in on their target, commanding my eyes to seek out his…well, boy parts.

He removed his glasses and stared with that penetrating gaze as I inched away from him, my back against the vehicle. I could only hope he wasn’t noticing my physical reaction.

“You’re not even a student here,” I said. “You can’t come with me.”

He laughed. “Like some fucking rules would ever stop me.” He caught my arm, leaned in, and whispered in my ear. He seemed to do that a lot. Was it because he knew it instantly got my attention? “I can go anywhere I like, Dakota. There are no walls, no laws, no school rules that can stop me.”

I shivered as I felt his hot breath tickle my skin. “What can? What will stop you?” I murmured, never expecting him to answer.

“An itch,” he replied.

An itch? “An itch?”

He breathed into my ear, and I inhaled deeply. He smelled like male. Cinnamon, testosterone. Male. “We all have needs. Sometimes those needs can’t be ignored.” His lips brushed across my cheek and stopped at the corner of my mouth. “Sometimes…we have to scratch.”

Unable to keep myself from remembering the dream and every hot, hard inch of him, my body tensed. But there was no doubt in my mind he was toying with me, trying to rattle my cage. But why? What had I done?

I tilted my head to the side. “You should have that itch looked at. Maybe you caught something.”

He laughed into the air.

I took advantage and scurried away like a little rodent fleeing from the light. “I can get to class on my own.”

He jerked his head. “Don’t be late, babe. I’ll see you at lunch.”

I flashed several glances over my shoulder until I rounded the corner and he was out of sight.

What had brought about this sudden change in him? Because this felt like more than a simple mind game used to keep me in check. The tension he radiated felt intense, real. It was as if he knew my mind had been in the gutter all night, and he was all too happy to join me. But my dreams were just that. Dreams. I couldn’t control them, and I certainly wasn’t about to give into them. No way.