My Darling Arrow (St. Mary's Rebels 1)

Yeah, he’s watching me with his shining, flaming eyes.

The eyes that I stupidly waxed poetic about.

I fist my hands at my sides and strangely, those eyes shine even more. Like two beacons on his shadowed features.

A hot shiver runs down the length of my body and I move toward him.

He watches me make my way through the drunken throng with an inscrutable look while leaning casually against the brick wall.

I’m about to reach him when he bends down and whispers something in the girl’s ear. He does it without taking his eyes off me and she leaves him with a nod.

I feel her pass me by but I don’t pay her any mind. My eyes are still glued to him and his to me.

When I reach him, he drawls, “I thought we were staying away from each other.”

Ignoring him, I ask, “Did you humiliate her too, like you did the last girl? To make her leave so quickly.”

He flicks his bright eyes over my face. “No. After you showed me the error of my ways, I was nice.”

“Oh, you were.”

He nods slowly. “I just told her the truth.”

“The truth. Really?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t wait to hear your truth.”

He studies me a beat, something rippling through his sharp features. “I just told her that a crazy groupie is headed my way. And she’s got a bad habit of getting jealous when I talk to other girls.”

I clench my teeth and a few lines of amusement deepen around his mouth. “You wish, you asshole.”

“You sure? Because you look a little…” He searches for the word. “Flustered.”

“Oh, I’m sure. I’m very, very sure.”

His eyelids flicker and go down to my darkly painted lips. “That’s too bad then, because I was kind of looking forward to reminding you that you’re just the little sister.”

It takes me a few moments to gather my thoughts.

Mostly because I’m remembering the touch of his thumb on my lower lip. The roughness of it, the heat while he was flicking it back and forth, almost playing with my flesh.

And I was letting him.

I was letting him play with my lip, with my witchy heart. With me.

But not anymore.

“You can keep your reminders to yourself because I’ve got something to say to you,” I snap.

Even though he hasn’t moved away from the wall, I know he has lost all his casualness. It’s in the way his eyes flash and his jaw clamps.

“And that is?”

I take a step closer to him and stab my finger in the air. “What you said to me last night was horrible. It was awful and completely uncalled for and you know it. You fucking know it. You treated me like shit and that’s not cool. Actually, no.” I pause and take a deep breath, and then say all the things that I didn’t even know were bubbling up inside of me. “You’ve been treating me like shit since you arrived, when I’ve been nothing but nice to you. I don’t deserve your assholishness and cruelty and your public humiliation and your stupid propositioning. So apologize to me. Right now.”

When I’m done, I’m breathing hard and I’m sweating like crazy. My finger that still hovers in the air is trembling.

That could also be because he’s looking at it.

He’s staring at my finger and he does it for a second or two before looking up.

But even then, he doesn’t look into my eyes, no. For some insane reason, he’s staring at my nose. He’s staring really hard at it and I don’t know what to think.

I’m about to speak up when he finally looks away and up into my eyes, tipping his chin at me. “You’re right.”

“I’m right?”

“You didn’t deserve it.”

“I didn’t?”

“That’s what I said.”

I stare up at him, my neck craned, my finger tired and shaking, still pointed at him. “So you’re apologizing. You’re saying you were wrong.”

Was it that easy?

He straightens up then, his chest expanding on a sharp sigh. “You want to get your finger out of my face and move?”

I curl my finger into my hand and bring it down to my side. “Why?”

His cheekbones thrum with irritation. “You don’t want to be my distraction, do you?”

I swallow as another shiver rolls down my spine. “No.”

“Then stop wasting my time and get out of my way.”

I do the opposite.

I plant myself in his way. I widen my feet and stand my ground.

Slowly, very slowly, Arrow glances down at my soccer cleats, and I tighten my muscles. I watch as he grits his teeth once, twice. Three times.

Before he raises his dark blue eyes. “I thought you didn’t need me to remind you that you’re just the little sister.”

His words hit me somewhere in my chest but still, I don’t budge. “I don’t.”

“So is there a reason why you’re acting like a jealous little groupie again?”

That one hits me too, but I refuse to move.