Chapter 29
As soon as I was free of his menacing aura, suffocating the lifeblood from me, I could think clearly about the situation.
I slumped down into the seat of the bus and stared out the window, wondering what he had in store for me tonight.
I didn’t like him. I mean…I had eyes so I could see he was an impressive-looking man, tall, broad, with big hands, and charming, but I didn’t like him.
Lev, I liked. Ezrah, I did not.
Everything boiled down to who his father was.
I couldn’t separate Ezrah from the man who hired a contract killer to kill my father.
If he had succeeded, I would be an orphan.
I wonder where I would be now if both my parents had died—especially without my mother, who died of cancer, and my father, whose absence I can’t imagine.
I also think it was dangerous to attempt to disconnect Ezrah Warwick from Leon Warwick, as they are one in the same.
The upside was that I looked scruffy, but on the downside, I was really hot, and my limbs didn’t move freely, and sitting down was extremely uncomfortable. However, if my plan worked out, he won’t be hanging around for long.
At 5.50 PM, there was a knock at my door, and I was annoyed that he had arrived ten minutes early. Skirting around the hanging fish hooks, I opened the door to find Lev standing there.
“Oh, hi.” My cheeks burned remembering the kiss in the library.
“Hi, Adina, you promised your notes from class,” he said, and it took me a few moments to realize what he was talking about.
“Yes. Did I? Did I promise?” I was racking my brains trying to remember what was said in that conversation, as it was a bit of a blur. “Sure.” I backed into my room, found my Digital Transformation folder and took the notes out, and handed them to him. “I hope you can read my writing.”
“It looks good,” he grunts, perusing the notes. I think I heard ‘thank you’ underneath his sullen mumbling tone, or maybe it was ‘Fankya.’ His phone vibrated, and his eyes pulled away from my notes to read the message, then he turned away and headed down the stairs. “Ezrah.”
“Oh? Damn, I was hoping he wouldn’t turn up,” I said under my breath, then shut the door, trying to come up with excuses as to how to cut this dinner date short.
My nerves coiled sickly in my stomach, and the only way to relieve them was to pace back and forth like a caged lion, although it had crossed my mind to jump out the window, since it was only on the first floor and it wasn’t too far to jump.
The solid knock at my door made me jump, and I calmed my rapidly beating heart as I was so hot in several layers of clothing that a film of sweat appeared on my forehead. I wiped it clear with the back of my forearm, but little could help cool my body, unless I shed a few layers of clothing.
I open the door a crack, peering up at that handsome face, twinkling eyes, dark blond hair swept back, dressed in nice black jeans and a white short-sleeved buttoned shirt, hugging that body, bulging arm muscles flexing.
He looked gorgeous and smelled delicious, and my entire body turned to rubber, like a pathetic, gushing girl.
“Great to see you dressed up,” he said, raking his eyes over my baggy sweatpants, then frowned as his eyes traveled over the thickness of my upper body.
“Where are we going?” I asked him, refusing to let him step into my room.
He held up two paper bags, “I’ve got the food, so you can provide the entertainment,” he said, locking his eyes onto mine, and my breath hitched.
I didn’t expect to be so nervous because I didn’t like him.
We spent an hour at the gym together, and I never once felt an ounce of attraction for him…
actually, that’s a lie, I did feel a tiny, weeny attraction to him in the gym in his firm-fitting t-shirt, but it was instantly killed as soon as he started throwing his weight around.
I swallowed over the lump in my throat. “What entertainment?”
He shrugged, “Whatever you want,” his answer was deliberately vague as if he had a clear idea of what he wanted, but didn’t want to say it aloud. “Garden or bedroom?”
“Huh?” My brain was mush due to the vast amount of nervous activity darting about in my weakening body.
“Due you want to have dinner in the college garden or in your bedroom?” he glanced past me, then frowned when he noticed something. “Are those fish hooks?”
“Yes, Lev met one when he broke into my room to leave the rubber snake in my bed, do you remember that?” I mocked, flaring my nostrils while grilling him, tapping my cheek, “That gash on his cheek was because he walked into one.”
“That snake you flung is still lying in the grass. Someone will come across it one day, in fact, and you’ll probably hear them scream when they stand on it. It’s a good likeness,” he stated evenly without letting on that he knew about Lev planting the snake in my bed.
“Didn’t scare me,” I lied, drawing a scoff out of him.
“So, the garden is it?” he pressed, slightly impatiently, like he was done standing there holding bags of food.
“Um,” I glanced back at the window as night was slowly falling faster than in the city because the sun disappeared behind the mountains first. But it was better to be outside so I could easily flee than be stuck in my bedroom with a man who easily filled that space.
Not to mention the giant elephant in the room called the bed. “Okay.”
I grabbed the shoulder bag that I had already packed with my essentials inside and followed him down the stairs, then spotted Mila and Erin chatting in the kitchen as they were eating plates of food from the dining hall.
I waved and made a ‘help me’ look, but their eyes gaped at Ezrah looking hot in his nice clothes, so I think my silent cry for help went straight over the top of them.
“Got your knife, Stabby?” Ez asked as he opened the door for me like a gentleman, and I ignored the flutter in my chest at his graciousness. What was he thinking, acting nice and opening the door for me?
“Of course,” I answered honestly, tightening the grip on my bag strap. He’d be able to wrangle it off me easily with those giant hands and the strength of a stallion. “I’d be stupid not to.”
A little smirk stretched across his dial as if he had dirty thoughts on his mind, and as we walked down the path toward the campus gardens, his hand rested on the small of my back, guiding me, and I had mixed feelings about that.
Once on the soft grass, walking past the macabre statues that watch over anyone who lingered, he blurted, “What the hell are you wearing?”
The light was dim, and the red eyes on the minotaur pouring water from his vase into the fountain were starting to light up. “Several layers of clothes in case I got cold.”
“How many layers?” he pressed dryly.
“Several. I have jeans on underneath these,” I patted my sweatpants over my thigh, “and I think five t-shirts, maybe more.”
He grunted as if he knew exactly why I wore five thousand clothes, but then surprised me with, “Easy.”
“Excuse me?” I questioned as we came to a picnic table, and he beckoned me to sit.
“Easy,” he repeated. “I can still get into you, if I want.”
“If you want?” I was horrified by his blatantly raw language.
“Why do you keep repeating everything I say?” I pressed mildly, taking the covered plates of food from the bags.
“Because I’m a little stunned,” I told him honestly. “What do you mean that I’m easy? I’m wearing a hundred layers of clothes, sweating down my back because I’m so hot just because I don’t want you to touch, and you think I’m easy.”
“I mean…it’ll be easy to rip those clothes off you,” he answered casually as if he was talking about ripping the packet off a cake of chocolate. “Like,” he motioned, ripping my baggy sweater with his hand in the air, “easy.”
A shiver traveled down my thighs at the thought of this man ripping my clothes off and seducing me, and I bit my bottom lip to suppress a sigh from escaping.
I couldn’t help but wonder how good it would feel to just let those big hands do whatever they wanted.
I wriggled in my seat to alleviate the urge I had between my thighs as he encouraged me to take the cover off my plate.
“Apricot chicken,” he pointed out proudly, and again a little flutter annoyed my chest. The man was really making an effort, but why?
“Yum, this looks and smells nice,” I said honestly.
“Afterward, you can open your gift, and we can try it out if you want?” he suggested. “I ordered it online especially for you.”
“Oh, wow, I mean…aren’t we supposed to, you know, be enemies that hate each other because right now the hate seems only one-sided,” I pointed out.
“Whose side hates?” he asked, frowning. “Is it me who hates you or the other way around?”
“Haven’t I made it obvious that I hate you?” I was disappointed as I thought I made a stellar effort.
“Meh, not really,” he said, shrugging those impressive shoulders.
“Well, I’m stunned,” I mumbled with my mouth full. “What’s the gift you have for me?”
“It’s a surprise. You’ll have to wait until you open it after dinner,” he asserted in that bossy tone, which was kinda making the growing desire I had for him worsen. I mean…I want to dampen these annoying feelings of wishing he’d fuck me into Christmas, not make me hornier.
“God, are you drugging me?” I stopped eating mid-chew and pointed at the food with my fork. That must be the only explanation as to why I had a growing need to fucked by Ezrah Warwick, the biggest prick on campus. And if he did have the biggest prick on campus, that would make it even better.
He snorted. “Yeah, not my style. Drugging chicks is never something I’d ever do.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” I said sarcastically, because I think the son of Leon Warwick was capable of sorts of evil.
He grew distant when he read a message that came through on his phone, then glanced behind him as if looking for someone. But we were surrounded by rose bushes and trellises, with tall trees beyond in failing light, so whoever he was searching for would have to be near for him to see them.
“Are you expecting someone?” I asked, then scrutinized his expression as he shook his handsome head.
“Sickle lost something in The Lud, and he was asking me where it was,” he explained, and I struggled to believe him.
“Oh. What did he lose?” I was interested to see how he would let this play out. One lie upon another.
He bowed his head, looking at me from under his eyebrows, “Your gun.”
“Ha!” I blasted him, pointing my fork at him, and a bit of chicken flew off and landed on his plate. “You do have it.”
He tipped his head back in laughter. “I’m kidding. Fuck, girl, you’ll believe anything. He lost his fucking mind, that’s what he lost.”
I rolled my eyes because he was still acting like a fool, and I was losing patience. “I don’t think I’d want to meet your brother down a dark alley,” I said truthfully. “Dementor.”
“Yeah, well, they always get it wrong between us,” he said flatly.
“What do you mean?” I was reluctant to eat food anymore in case he had drugged me, but also, wasting food was a pet hate of mine. So, I took another bite of chicken while he watched me closely, wearing that look on his face.
“Because he looks like my dad, so they think he’s the bad one,” he enlightened me, then rested his fork on his plate, wiped his hands on his thighs, and took a sip from his can of cola.
“And is he?” I pressed curiously.
He shrugged again and gazed out into the fading light.
“Actually, I thought both of you were the bad ones,” I said before he had a chance to say anything.
“Have you had enough?” he asked, ignoring my comment.
“Yeah, I think so,” I told him as nerves reared up again in my stomach, feeling like little pinpricks.
“Good,” he said, then placed a long box on the table before me. “Open it.”