“Look, Pulitzer, I don’t need your goddamn chivalry. I can handle myself just fine,” she says with a sneer.
I reach out and grab her arm as she skirts past me. “You sure as fuck needed me last night.” She wants to be a bitch? Well, I can be a grade A asshole. She has no idea who she’s messing with. We already started this relationship with a bang, so why not keep it going that way, right?
“Wow. You forget all of your women that quick? Last I checked, you were the one who made the first move in the stairwell.”
“Really?” My voice escalates with each letter of the word. “Parade that body of yours around and —”
“What? Be a woman? The audacity,” she says, feigning horror. She stops trying to shrug out of my grip and instead surprises me when she steps farther into me. “Let’s make one thing clear. Chivalry is dead. I wanted you. I had you. And I assure you, it won’t happen again.”
“You’d better come at me with better lines than that if you think I’m going to buy your bullshit lies. I believed them once. Not again, Beaux… or is it BJ?” We stare at each other in a silent standoff.
“It’s both, but you have to earn the right to call me Beaux, and it seems you already lost that,” she says as she lifts her chin in defiance. And shit, in less than twenty-four hours I believe I’ve met both Beaux and BJ. The funny thing is I’m not sure which one I like more. Or if I like either at all.
“Why’d you bolt last night? It’s a little too convenient, don’t you think?” I’m still feeling unsure about her motives and I hate it. I’m a man who survives by following his gut instinct, and right now my gut isn’t telling me shit. So goddamn frustrating.
Beaux steps toward me, steel in her posture, and spite in her voice. “Did you think you were that special?” she asks, causing me to immediately bristle at the comment, male ego front and center. “Don’t act so surprised. I found your bed easily in the dark, so why do you think I couldn’t have found the door so easily afterward?”
Touché.
“I don’t like being played.”
“And I don’t like being judged.” She takes a step back. “Now that we got that out of the way, let go of my arm.”
I keep my hand on her for a moment longer, wanting more from the answers than she’s giving me. Still I’m aware we both had sex last night willingly. I didn’t ask questions, didn’t want to know more – and that’s on me.
But I’ll put a whole helluva lot of blame on her right now too. I think there’s more to this story than she’s telling me. I keep thinking about that look in her eyes through the darkness of the room last night, and I can so easily see that she was deceiving me. And that’s sitting about as comfortable as a chastity belt on a hooker.
“Great, then I’ll expect the call from Rafe shortly that you’ve changed your mind about the position.”
“Fuck you.” She yanks her arm back this time, and I let it go willingly, watching every nuance of her reaction to try and figure out the truth here.
“Do you talk to your mother with a mouth like that?” She’s such a contradiction. Elegant with the mouth of a trucker and a body made for sin. No wonder I’m intrigued and pissed simultaneously.