“Are you going to give yourself willingly to him … or is he going to take something that’s not his to take like he did with Bella Blackwell?”
Elias started to shut the door. “Good talk, whoever the fuck you are, but it’s time for you to leave.”
Slade pressed one hand to the door, shoving it back open, while his other hand gripped Elias’s throat, ramming him into the wall.
“Slade!” I winced.
“Livy, Go. Get. In. Your. Car.”
“What are you talking about? Let him go!” I tugged at his arm as Elias’s face turned a reddish-blue.
“In Florida … your surfer friend raped a seventeen-year-old girl, but he got off on a technicality because the investigators fucked up the case. Then he moved here. And you were getting ready to let a rapist crawl between your legs.” He tsked several times. “Not smart. Now … as soon as you’re in your car, I’ll let him breathe again. It’s that simple.”
“Elias …” I whispered, not wanting to believe Slade.
He wouldn’t look at me. Maybe because he couldn’t breathe. Maybe because he did it. I grabbed my sweatshirt from the floor and ran out the door, shaky on my legs, head spinning to the point of nausea. It had to be a bad dream. My fantasy for months wasn’t a rapist. No.
No … no … no …
I collapsed into my car and inched the door shut, fastening my seat belt with unsteady hands.
A few seconds later, Slade slammed the front door to the house with Jericho at his side as he marched toward his SUV. He didn’t look at me until they were in his car. With the slightest nudge upward of his chin, he gestured for me to go.
I did.
I drove straight home.
I flew out and stomped to my front door.
“No,” I said to myself just before sliding the key into the lock. “You do not get to win.” Angry steps took me down the street to his house. Rage fueled me with an unscripted speech waiting to be unleashed on Slade Wylder for whatever that was at Elias’s house.
Ordering me around.
Spewing insane accusations at Elias.
And just … gah! Everything!
Without invite or a single knock, I threw open his back door just as he set his keys on the counter and started to shrug off his denim jacket. He pinned me with a look that dared me to say one word. “Turn around and go home.”
“Stop bossing me around,” I said through gritted teeth. “Why did you do that? Why did you say that? Elias is not a rapist.”
“Google it.” He took several steps in my direction, trying to intimidate me.
I stood my ground. “I asked him for sex.”
He narrowed his eyes for a few seconds like my words bothered him. “I’m sure it was going to be a nice break for him to get it without having to take it forcefully.”
“Why do you care?”
His gaze intensified as his jaw set. “I don’t.”
I grimaced, waiting for my head and my heart to agree on a reaction. How could he be so everything and so awful at the same time? “Why?” I whispered, letting my heart speak first.
“It’s not my job to care.”
I refused to blink until the burning tears retreated. Then I swallowed back the ball of anger and hurt swelling in my throat. “Then what exactly is your job? And how does it involve me at all? Why do you care if someone rapes me?” Words I never imagined coming from my mouth.
“Go home.”
“I’m not going home!” I shoved his chest.
His eyebrows shot up his forehead as he took a step back.
I stepped into him and shoved him again.
“Watch it …” he warned.
“I don’t want to watch it.”
Shove.
“I don’t want to be told what to do!”
Shove.
“I don’t want to be touched unless you’re going to fucking kiss me!”
Shove.
His back hit the fridge. Mint and soap assaulted my senses as the only sound in the room was the hum of the air conditioner and my labored breaths.
My lips parted as my chest violently rose and fell. “Put your hands on me, Wylder,” I whispered.
Pity dripped from his expression.
I didn’t want his pity. I wanted his hands on me. When did my seduction become so desperate?
When Slade Wylder infiltrated my world. That was when.
My gaze slipped to his chest. I couldn’t endure those eyes without him giving me something back.
“Then stop. Stop saving me. Stop watching me. Stop sending Jericho to be with me. Stop existing in my world.” I turned and drifted slowly toward the door. “Buy a girl flowers and reject her. Don’t take the life of the man who threatened her life then expect her to not want you beyond reason.” I opened the door and stared at my feet for several seconds. “It’s not fair.”
Chapter Eleven
The next morning, I let the girls go surfing without me with a warning about Elias. I wasn’t in the mood to get out of bed. I wasn’t in the mood to do life at all. After searching up Bella Blackwell and finding out that Slade was right about my fantasy guy, I just … couldn’t.
When a relentless knock at the door brought me out of my pout session, I grumbled a few expletives and dragged my ass downstairs. “What?” I threw open the door, my anger bleeding through every pore.
“Good morning to you too.”
A grin broke through my grumpiness in record time as I threw my arms around my Aunt Jessica—my dad’s twin. “What are you doing here?” I pulled back and gestured for her to step inside.
She slipped off her sneakers and flipped her long, dark hair over her shoulder. “I’m in LA on business this week, and I wanted to see my favorite niece.”
“And my dad wanted you to check in on me.” I shuffled my bare feet to the kitchen in need of caffeine.
“That’s a given, Livy.” She followed me.
“Tea?” I glanced over my shoulder as I filled my electric tea kettle.
“Please.” She perched on a barstool, depositing her purse on the counter. “You look good.”
I laughed, cranking open the window to let in questionably fresh air and the hum of the neighbor’s lawn mower. “My friends say I’m too skinny.”
“You surf twenty-four-seven. Of course, you’re going to burn calories like mad. I did too. Tell your friends to go fuck themselves.”
Aunt Jess was one of my favorite people in the whole world. She was the calm in the storm that was my dad after Mom died.
Grinning, I poured her a cup of hot water and handed her the jar of mixed teas. “Can’t tell them that. I like them too much.”
She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
I leaned into the counter across from her, resting on my forearms while dunking my tea bag up and down in the mug, fresh mint and citrus waking me up. “I wish I had half your strength.”
She lifted her gaze from her tea, eyes narrowed a fraction. “What do you mean?”
Rubbing my lips together, I kept my attention on my tea, hoping to keep my emotions in check. “If I tell you something, can you promise not to tell my dad. Like … ever?”
“Does it involve your dad?”