controlling force of his powerful hand. This time I was certain—it was arousal that was flooding my senses. I’d never been handled like that before. I’m not the smallest girl in the world, and no man other than this beast would have been able to do that to me, even if they’d dared.
“Get the hell off of me, you creep,” I snarled at him. Hot or not, a lady’s gotta have standards of respect.
He pushed me over so that I was on my back as he held himself over me. His right leg was pressed against mine and I could feel the outline of his thick manhood pressing against me. He leaned in, bringing his nose close to mine. For the first time I could look directly into his hazel eyes. I sensed some sort of conflict in his eyes. “Wait here.”
He pushed off of the bed and moved swiftly out of the room. It was remarkable the grace a man of his size and brutishness could have. I heard him in the other rooms and my heart sank.
When he came back his arms were full of white sheets, crumpled in a ball in his arms. “You’ll start from the beginning and this time you’ll get it right,” he said, tossing the sheets at the foot of the bed. He stepped back over to me, where I was still sitting on the edge, bringing his face unnecessarily close to mine again. “Is that understood?”
He reached underneath me, his hands brushing my ass and grabbing the sheets, yanking up and tearing them off the bed in one swoop, spinning me violently in the process. “Hey, what the fuck!?” I regained my balance and looked at him intensely, sizing him up. “You know, I bet you’re just an asshole to cover up the fact that you’re a big ol’ teddy bear on the inside, aren’t ya?” I grinned mischievously and reached out my fingertips and dug them into his ribs, wiggling them back and forth.
His face was dead cold. “What did you just say?”
“You’re like a big ol’ teddy bear?” He didn’t move. He didn’t react. Just stared down at me. I couldn’t quite figure out what his face was trying to say. Something changed behind his eyes. “You okay? It was just a joke.”
He stepped away from me. “Get back to work.”
And then I was alone.
It occurred to me that as soon as he left the room I might burst into tears, but I held it together. I was a bit of a mess in my head, though. I was running through such a rush of emotions all at once. Fear, anger, lust…all balled together and burning from my brain right down to my nether parts. I hadn’t even been there one full day and already I was getting put through the ringer. I wasn’t entirely certain that I could make it through two weeks of this until they opened, much less through the whole season, when Drake was certain to be even more uptight about the patrons’ supposed perceptions and needs.
I brought the sheets back to each of the rooms and started over. I’d only made it through the third room for the second time when Blake came to check up on me.
“Hey, how’s it going,” he said, knocking on the door and poking his head in. “I thought you might have been further along by now…”
I jumped up from where I was kneeling. “I’m sorry! I did do more, but Drake wasn’t happy, so he asked…”
Blake just laughed. “Say no more. Here, let me give you a hand.”
“You…you don’t have to do that,” I said.
“It’s the least I could do to make up for my asshole brother,” he said, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. “He doesn’t mean anything by it. I think he’s actually a bit smitten. Which just makes him more…him.”
“Wait, seriously?”
“Hah, yeah. It doesn’t make him very popular with the ladies, I can say that.”
“I’ll say. I’m not quite so interested in that brother.” Oh jesus christ, did I really just say that?
Blake just laughed. “Is that so?”
In for a penny… “You could say that.”
“I’m pretty sure you just did.”
“I have my tastes.”
“You should be careful,” he said, still smiling, but