Chapter 14 #2
I straightened, shyness flushing across my cheeks. “That is why I need to keep my weight in check.”
There were no arguments from either of them. Only silence. Then I noticed Onyx’s expression as he stared over my shoulder—something between “oh, fuck” and “we’re fucked.”
Neon, on the other hand, said the actual words as she stared behind me. “Oh, fuck.”
It was him. I knew it. I felt him behind me, a chill slowly spreading down my spine while it felt like a furnace had been turned on underneath my skin.
There was no need to see him to be able to feel his presence.
A man like Granite brought a sense of authority and power whenever he entered a room… just like he did now.
“Granite,” I whispered, closing my eyes.
“Your room. Now.”
“It’s not my room.”
Neon snapped her gaze to me. “Not the time, Swan Lake,” she warned softly. But even though fear was weighing heavy inside my gut, anger was knocking against my skull.
With a touch of his hand on my shoulder, my body shuddered. “Back to your room. Now.”
For a moment, it felt like I had a demon stuck inside me, desperate to get out. So I reacted—bravely, yet foolishly, it seemed.
As I spun around, I lifted my hand, ready to slap some fucking humanity into the man who seemed like nothing but a giant brick wall. But he saw it coming, grabbing my wrist, pushing my arm away from his face. To be honest, I was giving it all I had by pressing back, while he wasn’t even trying.
I bit my lip while staring up at him, and all he gave me was a half-grin.
Green eyes beamed with amusement, yet his features remained hard, unreadable.
Unlike Neon and Onyx, Granite gave me nothing—no pieces to put together in order to get a picture of the man he really was.
Nothing about him was transparent or predictable.
And I had a feeling no matter how hard he kept me—as Neon put it—Granite was an enigma I would never be able to figure out.
It only took two encounters with Neon, and I already knew she was a misfit hiding behind the safety of pretending to be a hard-ass. And both times she had shown me kindness.
Onyx was the young man constantly living in his big brother’s shadow. It wasn’t jealousy. It wasn’t your normal sibling rivalry. It was something different. Onyx seemed so…trapped. Maybe he craved freedom…like me.
But Granite? I had nothing. No pieces. No puzzle. No way to figure him out.
Granite brought my arm down, his fingers clasped tightly around my wrist. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. It was all there in his eyes.
Anger.
Fury.
Disappointment.
His glare cut over my shoulder toward Onyx. Jealousy…?
“I said go to your room,” he gritted out, his jaw clenched while still looking straight at Onyx. The atmosphere was excruciating. Downright toxic. It was like a goddamn choking hazard.
I didn’t mean to hesitate. Honestly, I didn’t know what the hell to do with Granite towering over me like a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound threat.
But I did hesitate. I didn’t move…until Granite grabbed me with one arm wrapping around my waist, hoisting me up and over his shoulder like I weighed nothing.
One arm. Just one fucking arm, and I was carried off down the hall.
“Yo, Granite. What’s going on?”
Some bald guy stepped aside as we passed him in the hall with me still over Granite’s shoulder. Granite didn’t even look his way. He stomped down the hall like he was waiting for hellhounds to start gnawing at his fucking ankles.
“Put me down!” My fists slammed into his back, but it was no use. My strength was no match for his.
Granite walked into the room and slammed the door closed before finally putting me down. When my feet hit the floor, I rushed to the other side of the room, panic and anger reaching the boiling point inside me.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” I bit out.
“You danced for him.”
I balked. “What?”
He took a step forward. “You danced for my brother.” The words left his mouth with a snarl, the hard tone of hostility poisoning the air around us even more.
“What? No.” I shook my head. “I didn’t dance for your brother. Well, I did. But I didn’t. Shit.”
“I saw you dance while he watched you.”
“Neon watched too.” I pointed to…to…well, fucking nowhere. “I wasn’t dancing for Onyx. I was trying to prove a point.”
He took another step closer, his face nothing but stone. “And what point is that? That you can dance? That you can bend your fucking body and split your legs wide open?”
“Good God.” I pulled my hands through my hair. “That’s not what I was doing. I was just…” I stilled. “Wait. What does it matter?”
Granite didn’t move, and his expression still gave me nothing.
I moved closer, just a little. “What does it matter, Granite? So what if I danced for your brother?” Curiosity got the better of me. It was stronger than fear. There was a reason curiosity killed the cat.
Granite rubbed his palm across his beard, his lips pulled in a straight line.
Of course, being the curious cat, I had to push just a little further. “Do not tell me you’re jealous.”
Stupid curious cat.
Like a giant wrecking ball, Granite launched at me, my back hitting the wall as he grabbed my neck, wrapping his fingers around my throat.
“You’re fucking with the wrong man, Alyx.”
“I’m not fucking with anyone.”
His green-eyed gaze searched my face, nothing but disdain and displeasure in the depths of his eyes. “You need to start behaving.”
“And you need to let me go. You can’t do this.”
He took another step, and I found it increasingly difficult to draw a decent breath.
Granite leaned closer, and I clearly saw every hard line on his face. “This is my world, ballerina girl. Here, I do whatever the fuck I want.”
“Not with my life, you don’t. I’m not one of your fucking club members, and I sure as hell didn’t ask for you kidnap me.”
“Keep on lying to yourself.”
“Just because we made eye contact a few times doesn’t give you the right to kidnap me.”
He bit his lower lip. “I don’t see it as kidnapping. More like a forced intervention.”
“You’re a depraved fucking man, Granite.”
His grip tightened. “Yet you still want me.”
“Now who’s lying to himself?”
“Am I?” His nostrils flared, his tongue darting out to wet his lips as he tipped his head to the side.
“Did you not watch me? Think about me?” I let out a breath when his finger brushed across my lips.
“Did you not wonder what it would be like to be with me? To ride on the back of my motorcycle with your arms wrapped tightly around me?”
I swallowed hard.
His gaze followed the movement of his fingers. “Can you tell me you never once thought about me…in your bedroom,” he leaned closer, his warm breath dancing across the skin of my neck, “in your bed…fucking you?”
“Jesus, Granite,” I breathed. My body felt drained of all its strength. Suddenly, there was nothing but a throbbing ache between my legs, something I had no business feeling.
Abruptly, his fingers gripped my jaw, digging into my flesh. “Tell me you never once looked at me from that motherfucking window, your panties soaked with the thought of me touching you.”
“Stop.”
He pressed harder, puckering up my lips as his grip tightened. “Tell me you never touched yourself, made yourself come thinking about me fucking you raw.”
I clenched my teeth, heart racing and palms sweating. “You’re disgusting, you know that?”
A smirk crept up at the corners of his mouth. “Oh, that’s right. That pussy of yours is still untouched. It’s still all tight and intact.”
My eyes widened. “How the hell do you—”
“I told you, there’s nothing about you I don’t know.
” He brushed the pad of his thumb over my lips, and I shivered.
“I’ve always been there hiding in the shadows, making sure no man touches what’s mine.
And that’s exactly what you are. Mine.” He brought his lips closer to mine.
“Ever wonder why your jock boyfriend ended up with a broken leg, never returning to claim what you were so willing to give him? Or why no other guy attempted to come near you? To touch you?”
Jesus Christ. “It was you?”
“You thought it was daddy, didn’t you?”
“You crazy son of a bitch.”
“I won’t argue that.”
“You’re fucking insane.”
He shrugged. “I won’t argue that either.”