Tate (Mountain Men 3)

She shrugs. “Out of here.”

I throw the deadbolt on the door and kick my boots off, before I turn back around to face her. Like a good girl, she hasn't moved. She's done exactly what I said and stayed in position, but to be fair, it’s been all of three minutes.

“Good girl,” I say, stalking back to her, my eyes riveted on hers. She bites her lip and swallows, but it’s barely noticeable in the dim light of the living room. I flick on a lamp, and she blinks in the sudden brightness.

“It’s more gorgeous with the light,” she says. “Even more beautiful than—”

“Be quiet, Fran.” Though my voice is quiet, she listens. She closes her mouth, and eyes me curiously. There’s none of the usual confidence that she typically has. She looks nervous as hell, and I’m bloody fucking pleased she’s finally gotten the message that what she did is unacceptable. “The only way I’ll allow you to speak right now is if you have something to say about the books you wrote.”

“I didn’t write them,” she says, fuming, so angry her eyes are slits, her hands clenched by her sides. She’s either stubborn as fuck or needs to tell me the truth.

We’ve studied the art of interrogation. Direct means, watch for signs of lying, accusation typically brings out truth more quickly than open-ended questions.

“You did. You know that you did. You're not going to get out of here until you've told me the truth. And you're most definitely not getting away from being punished.”

She looks to the left and doesn’t meet my eyes.

Lying.

It's probably wrong that I'm looking forward to punishing her, but I don’t fucking care at this point. I know there's a sadistic side of me I've not wanted to acknowledge, and I've never even entertained the thought of punishing Fran before. But now I feel as if it's my obligation. If any of the members of the Clan found out that she was the writer, she'd be in terrible danger.

Hell, she is now.

When they find out, they'll have to know that I've already punished her, questioned her, and gotten the full truth. It's the only way to save her from a harsher punishment, or even death.

We're a close-knit family. We're trying to look out for each other. But we are the most powerful Clan in Scotland for a reason.

"And furthermore," I say to her. "If you're innocent, then why did you try to escape?"

She flinches at that. Bites her lip. Doesn't respond.

"Come here, please.” I crook a finger at her, wanting her to approach me on her own. I'm not going to punish her here in the middle of the living room.

I'll take her to my bedroom for that.

She walks over to me, biting her lip. She clears her throat, and her eyes meet mine. The closer she gets the more I feel the draw to her, the electric vibe that crackles between us like a live wire.

Once, when we were younger, a massive tree branch came down on an electric wire at the back of the house. Before we knew what had happened, the sizzling burn of electricity snapped and crackled through the dry brush, starting a brush fire. We’re so far away from emergency crews, we had to put the fire out ourselves. We did, thankfully, but not before it caused a good deal of damage.

That’s what I remember now. What comes to me in the silence between her walking to me and me crooking my finger at her. The way the wire sizzled and cracked, a physical manifestation of unharnessed energy.

Raw. Consuming.

Hot enough to burn us both to ash.

Chapter 8

Fran

I think I should be afraid. Okay, hell, I am definitely afraid. But I think maybe people don’t normally like fear? Maybe there's something broken in me, something defective, because I definitely like a little fear.

I like the adrenaline rush. I like not knowing what's going to happen to me. I like knowing that what I'm doing isn't safe at all.

And Tate Cowen is definitely not safe. He's bloody fucking angry at me, and I have to admit I don't blame him. I feel a little guilty for lying to him, though, because I like him. Hell, I like all of them. I never did any of this to double-cross them or anything stupid like that.

I don’t know why I did it.

Maybe I wanted him to find me out.

Maybe I wanted him to be angry with me. Maybe a little part of me hoped that I'd get attention this way.

Or maybe I just never even thought it through, which is a decided possibility. Like getting a Brazilian wax, or ordering the raw sushi instead of the delicious cooked kind.

One time, I went on vacation to this place that offered “Thai fish pedicures.” And they had this option, for like an extra twenty quid they’d put these little fish in the water with you that literally eat dead skin, leaving you supposedly with soft, tender feet. Other people would use loofahs. I, however, went for the Thai option. None of my friends were brave enough to do it, but I was really into it.