11. Wreck-less behaviour
CHAPTER 11
WRECK-LESS BEHAVIOUR
CHARLIE
T here’s no two ways about it. Emma Conway hits like an anvil to the chest.
Straight to the solar plexus, putting me on my ass every goddamn time.
So maybe it’s karma that I almost hit her back. With my goddamn car, no less.
I slam the brakes hard, and the squeal of the tires finally pulls her attention away from her fucking phone—which would have helped before she stepped out into the street—my seatbelt clotheslining me as the car stops.
Fuck.
Between the brakes and my reflexes, I stop only inches from her, but the shock of it still sends her tumbling to the ground.
I throw the car in park and jump out. Emma’s flat on her back on the asphalt, her chest heaving.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed? What the hell were you thinking?” I ask.
Wide eyes blink up at me. Shit, she’s in shock.
I crouch down, ignoring the horns and complaints of the cars behind me. “Hey,” I say, keeping my tone light. Her skin is cold, and she jolts when I touch her shoulder, but at least there’s a spark of recognition. I release a breath. “There you are.”
I keep trying to convince myself she’ll get less beautiful each time I see her.
Maybe next time I’ll see the shock of blond hair and fierce eyes and not want to say a little prayer to a deity I don’t believe in.
Maybe she’ll stop being so insistently competent, and I’ll get through a single fucking day without having to picture an octogenarian’s wrinkly, sweaty ball sac to cut off the salute my dick wants to give her.
Maybe the little shit will remember Emma hates me and wouldn’t touch either of us, even if it guaranteed world peace.
It hasn’t happened yet, but I always hope.
I’m a fool because Emma Conway only ever manages to get more beautiful.
“I can’t believe you almost hit me,” she pouts. “What, annoying me to death wasn’t working fast enough, so you thought you’d finish me off with your car?”
Thank fuck the question is rhetorical, because as she dusts her hands off on her knees, all I can do is stare.
She’s in pale blue tights and a matching crop that draw spectacular attention to her trim waist and full, beautiful breasts. Holy shit, is this what she’s been hiding under her clothes? I can’t work out where to look first, my eyes greedy as always to drink in as much of her as possible.
“You’re the one wish a death wish, sweetheart.”
Her chest rises and falls dramatically with every harsh breath.
She’s still blinking too rapidly for my liking.
“Fuck. I didn’t even see you,” she says.
Yeah, no shit . I bite back my frustration in favor of helping her up. I haul myself back up to my feet and reach down, but she just stares at my hand like she doesn’t know what to do with it.
“Not trying to kill you, I promise.”
Tentatively, she slips her hand in mine. The instant we touch, the world around us slows.
“You sure you’re all right?” I ask as I carefully pull her up and scan for cuts. My heart is flipping like a fish out of water. “Nothing sprained? No broken bones?”
Emma stands, grimacing. “Only a bruised ego.”
I take a step back and look her over, not bothering to hide my appreciation. “You look pretty good to me.”
The eye roll she gives me is 100 percent expected, even though it lacks its usual bite. The shock must be worse than I thought.
Maybe it’s the adrenaline coursing through me or the way those leggings make my head spin, but I find myself saying, “Let me drive you home.”
She stalls, frowning at me.
“No, thank you.”
I sigh. Sure, I get it . We aren’t friends. But when Emma takes a step and winces, I can’t leave her to walk home like this.
“At least order a ride,” I say.
She looks away, chewing her lip, and I’m starting to think I should just walk away. If she’d rather hurt herself than be near me, then so be it. That’s a game I’ll never win.
When she finally meets my eye, I raise a brow in question.
“Don’t make me regret this,” she says, shuffling to the passenger side of my car.
If anyone’s going to have regrets, it’ll be me.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” I can’t hide my smile, though, as I slip into the driver’s seat.
It’s no secret Emma hates me.
I can’t exactly blame her. She made her reasons clear and there’s a hell of a high chance I’ll never change her mind.
What she doesn’t know is that I don’t feel the same way.
The farther I drive, the more I’m convinced she’s pulling my leg. “You really want me to believe you were gonna walk all this way? Did your driver get the weekend off or what?”
She side-eyes me, her jaw ticking. “Believe what you want. I walk it every day. To and from work. I don’t have a driver, or a car, and I’m not allergic to public transportation. Any other aspersions you want to throw at me? Because I’ll get out at the next light.”
I knew a guy like that once. He’d never had the need for a license because he never learned to drive. But Lang was an environmental activist. I’m not sure Emma’s reasons are the same.
Or maybe they are, since I’ve already established that nothing about her makes sense to me.
I risk a glance over and find her watching me, brows raised like she’s waiting for a response.
What? Does she want a gold star?
When I turn back to the road without answering, Emma shifts to look out her window.
It’s another two blocks before she speaks again. “One good deed hardly makes up for what you did.”
My chest tightens. Christ, I can’t win. “Hey, I’m trying here. What are you doing?”
She lets out a disgruntled sound and crosses her arms over her chest. It pushes her tits up, and I have to focus not to crash the car. “I don’t have anything to apologize for.”
I scoff. Treating me like filth doesn’t count, I guess. “Of course you’d see it that way.”
She continues to scowl out the window.
Fuck. Everything about her is clenched so tight I could probably farm diamonds out of her molars. There’s never a strand of her icy blond hair out of place.
Perfectly straight, middle part, no fun allowed.
Reese spent most of her junior year of high school in the world’s ugliest purple hat after an impromptu undercut from a curling iron.
Emma’s hair—permanently soft and always glowing under the fluorescents in the office—could win best in show.
“Look,” I try, gripping the steering wheel. “I know you don’t like me much, and I know I deserve it, but I’m trying to make it up to you. Do you think you could give me a chance to prove I’m not the monster you think I am?”
“I don’t know how Roberts thought this was going to work,” she sighs.
It’s a question I’ve been asking myself for weeks.
“It would be easier if you weren’t locking me out of the document I’m supposed to be helping you write,” I say.
She twists in her seat to face me. “I wouldn’t have to if you and Roberts stopped rewording everything.”
Daddy’s little princess must be so used to getting everything she wants. Emma probably assumed that she’d walk in and immediately be put in charge. I bet she hates that she has to compete for this promotion. Even more so because I’m the one she’s up against.
“Look, you might know the system backward, but maybe if you got off your pedestal?—”
She raises her voice three notches. “Excuse me?”
“—and listened to the people who are actually using it, as lowly as you might consider us?—”
“Stop the car. I’ll walk.”
I hit the lock button.
She whips around in her seat. “You’re seriously trapping me in here? I think this technically counts as kidnapping.”
So much for being nice. This is the last time I offer to help her.
“You’d rather risk your life than talk to me, but I’m the problem?”
She crosses her legs and glares out the window. Thank fuck I need to keep my eyes on the road. I can’t even decide whether I’m more mad about her attitude or how perfect her ass looks in those pants.
The damn smoke alarm between my thighs has been throbbing, low and constant, since she got in the car, an annoying and unnecessary reminder. Don’t know what you want from me, buddy. I see the fire, but I can’t do shit about it.
There’s no way to touch without getting burned, and yet I can’t help but want to anyway.
“I don’t think I’m better than you,” she bites out, as if it’s costing her to admit it. “It’s obvious you’ve made up your mind about me, and I can assure you that regardless of what you want to call me, I’ve already heard it. I’ve known guys like you my whole life.”
I doubt that.
“Sweetheart, there are no guys like me.”
She barks a laugh that borders on ugly. “You think that because you’re attractive, you can say anything you want. For an opportunistic dick, at least you’re stylish. Does the Zegna come with a hypocrisy discount, or is that a bonus?”
I white-knuckle the steering wheel in frustration. “You really wanna go there? When you’re hauling around a watch like that, even in your gym gear? What is it anyway, a Rolex?”
She covers it with her hand as though I’m about to reach over and take it. “Cartier.”
Of course.
I hold back a scoff, and an uneasy silence descends for another block.
Roberts couldn’t have known what he was getting by pitting us against each other, but I’m starting to wonder if it’s more pain than it’s worth.
It takes a solid minute before I realize she’s shaking. Son of a bitch. First, I almost hit her with my car (even if it was her own damn fault), and here I am, arguing with her and making it worse.
At the next red light, I reach between the front seats and grab one of the blankets I keep in the back for the dogs. Emma takes it without a word and pulls it around her shoulders.
Every few minutes, she gives me a new direction, and the closer we get, the more curious I am to see where she lives. It’s not every day I play chauffeur to an heiress.
It’s not until I’ve parked that I realize where we are. Dormside is a nickname for the part of town where just about every college kid I knew—including Reese and me—bunked for cheap when we first moved here.
Why the hell would she direct me here? To play a sick joke at my expense?
Anger has my heart pounding like a vicious drummer. Emma might be cold, but I never took her for cruel.
Then again, I’ve been wrong before.
“You can’t live here,” I say, each word jagged and harsh. How does someone like Emma Conway even know this dump exists?
“Screw you,” she hisses, then she’s unlocking her door and climbing out. “Thanks for the ride.”
Polite to a fault. I almost laugh. She’s barely three steps away before I’m out and following her. As I catch up, she stops, turning on her heel.
Brows pinched, she glares at me. “What are you doing?”
“Proving something.” Like the fact that she’s a damn liar.
She lifts her chin. “I’ve got nothing to prove to you.”
I step closer. “Look. I don’t know who told you about this place”—or that I used to live here, and fuck, who at work would even know that?—“but I know this neighborhood, and if you really do live here, like you say, then I’ll feel a hell of a lot better walking you to your door.” Shoving my hands into my jeans, I step closer. “Now, are you going to let me be a gentleman, or should I drive you to your actual apartment?”
There’s that murderous look again. Many people have leveled that at me, none of them half as stunning as she is.
Shit, she’s gonna give me some kind of hate kink, isn’t she?
“Fine.”
She stalks ahead so fast I have to jog to catch up.
Everywhere I look, I’m hit with nostalgia. It’s been years, but I can still point out the pipe the super bent when he parked his truck too close and the water damage spot that looks like a two-headed llama on the ceiling. The hallway still smells like smoke, and I would bet money that the fire alarms don’t work.
“Christ, this place hasn’t changed a bit.”
We stop at a door on the first floor, and that twisting in my stomach has turned to dread. She’s so damn close to the stairwell. It’d be easy for someone to break in.
Then Emma slides her key smoothy into the lock and opens the door.
Holy shit.
“Well?” she says, still looking angry and beautiful. “Get inside. I’m not doing this in the hall.”
I step over the threshold, my heart thundering in my chest. “I bet you say that to all your dates.”
None of this makes sense, and not in the sexy, mysterious way I’ve come to associate with her. No, the apartment is cramped and dark, transporting me to a time in my life I’ve worked for years to move past. A place I never would have pictured her in a million years.
I rub the back of my neck, scrambling to connect this place with the Emma I thought I knew.
“Are you happy now? Have I passed your test?”
Honestly, I don’t know what I am.
What the hell happened? Last I checked—and I’d never admit to googling her, but I absolutely have—the Conways were still considered part of the upper class. So what’s Emma doing slumming it in a studio with more scuffs than a monster truck?
As I take in the forest green couch, the espresso machine crowding the kitchen counter, the cotton candy sweater she wears on Fridays hanging over the back of a chair, it’s clear. This isn’t a prank.
And fuck , maybe I’ve been wrong about her.
“You actually live here.”
It’s the wrong thing to say.
Her eyes go ice cold. “Yes, I do. Now that you’ve seen it, you can go back and laugh about it with your golfing buddies. I’m sure all the people at work who have called me a princess will enjoy creating a new nickname.”
No one would ever accuse me of having tact, but in this moment, my mouth definitely loses the plot.
“Did you run away from home? Mom and Dad cut you off or something? Or is this another part of your community outreach?”
“You know what, Charlie? Fuck you.” Emma’s on me before I can blink, both hands gripping my shirt and pushing. She matches me, step for step, so close I could count every lash. Her eyes spark in surprise when my back hits the wall and our chests touch, our breaths tangling together. “Is that all you’ve got?”
Be careful what you wish for.
And like the beggar and thief I’ve always been, I slide my hand around her neck and pull her the rest of the way, stealing the kiss that’s been driving me to distraction since I met her.
It’s filthy and deep. A battle of teeth and tongue and every bit of brimstone I’ve seen let loose.
If this is burning, then I’ll cross hot coals to get to her. Beg her to incinerate me and thank her for the pleasure.
God, she tastes better than I imagined she would.
Emma kisses the same way she works—with passion and determination. It’s devastating. The brutal way she attacks my mouth, her tongue battling mine, makes my blood sing.
Fuck, no one’s consumed me like this before.
The world exists as nothing except the hungry sweep of her tongue, her vicious grip on my neck. Our teeth clash, and I’m greedy for more, pushing my thigh between hers, leaning in with my whole body. When she gasps and rocks against me, I suck on her bottom lip with a growl.
She’s better than any dessert, hot and sweet and already so fucking addicting.
No ice bath on earth could be cold enough to replicate how it feels when Emma steps back, her eyes wide again with shock.
“This is wrong,” she says, her voice shaky. “You should go.”
Fuck. Leave it to me to make everything so much worse.
So that’s that. She’ll never be able to see past what I did or who I am. Good to know.