Chapter 17

seventeen

Cash

Wrenlee stops in the middle of the mall, tips her head back, and groans to the skylight, “Pleeeease.”

She’s looking at the thing like it’s a window for a deity who might take pity on her, answering the deepest yearning of her soul. She’s magnificent. Unexpectedly exquisite.

Mine.

There’s something wrong with me.“One more stop.”

The defiant little thing shakes her head. “No. No more stops.”

“Kitten,” I start for her, but she holds up a hand in warning. The nerve.

“Don’t Kitten, me, Cash.” I raise a brow, amused. She powers on. “I’m tired. And I’m not letting you pay for anything else. I’m done.” She folds her arms across her full chest as though the very act is the shield that will stop me from connecting with her. From dragging her to the last store.

I’m the kind of guy who saves the best for last. So she’s coming for this whether she wants to come or not.

“One more.” She shakes her head and I quirk a grin. The very grin I’ve noticed she can’t resist.

Her lips pucker, and it takes everything in me not to lean down and nip at them. It’d teach her. Or it’d ignite her. I’m not sure which I prefer.

“I don’t have one more in me.” She pouts, twisting those lips to the side. Then, her eyes slide to the side too. Under her breath, she murmurs, “This makes me feel bad.”

I step in closer, head cocked. “What’s that?”

Sighing, she tips her head back to connect those cat-green eyes with mine. “This doesn’t feel good, Cash.”

“What doesn’t feel good?” I’m confused. What chick doesn’t love a shopping spree? What chick has to be dragged by threat of force?

Apparently, my chick.

“This.” She throws her hands wide, exasperated.

I blink. I’m starting to get pissed off, and that’s never a good thing. Never. “Spell it out for me, Kitten, because I’m confused.”

Sucking her bottom lip into her mouth, she taps a foot, thinking. Releasing her lip with a scrape of teeth that is so violent and wrought with emotion, the pink turns ruby red.

The kind of red I want her mouth when I fuck it.

Shit. Head in the game, man.

She lets me have it. “You pay for everything. Rent. Food. Now my clothes, too? For what?” She throws her hands to the sides again before gesturing to her body. “A few kisses and a fake relationship?” I’m not sure what she’s getting at, but she doesn’t give me a chance to ask before she gives it to me. “It feels—I feel cheap.”

Hold up. What the actual fuck?

“Cheap?” I can’t believe this.

“Yes. Cheap.” Tiny hands with her slim, beautiful fingers, I’ve fantasized about having wrapped around my cock more than once fly toward the bags I carry. “All that isn’t worth a few kisses, Cash!”

People are starting to stare as they pass us by. I don’t give two shits.

I crowd her. The little vixen doesn’t even flinch. In fact, she glares up at me with that little chin tipped up, eyes on fire. “There’s nothing cheap about you, Wrenlee. Nothing.” I tip my face until I can taste the sweet vanilla cream of her breath on my tongue. “In fact, a single kiss from you is worth every penny I have to my name.”

Her eyes widen, chest rising and falling hard. Then, as though she just can’t cope with my words, she throws her face to the side, tugging that lip back between those little white teeth. She bites hard, denting the flesh I want to soothe with my tongue.

What is wrong with me? What has this tiny girl done to me? Turned me into?

She’s turned me inside out, that’s what. I don’t even know which way is up anymore. All because of a tiny woman who is convinced none of this is real. It’s the most real thing I’ve ever had. She’s more real than the mic I clutch between my hands. More real than the ink I pen to paper. More real than the words I pour from the depths of my heart, cutting from the voids of my soul for the world to shred.

Hell, I’m pretty sure we’re arguing right now. Something that, if any other woman before her would have tried, I’d have walked away. Not because I cared not to hurt her, but because I didn’t give enough of a shit to give her a piece of my mind. To fight not with her, but for her.

“People are starting to stare,” she breathes quietly.

“Fuck ‘em.”

Her face pales a shade or two. “I think that lady just took a photo of us.”

“Don’t care.”

“Why would someone take a photo of us?”

Because, unlike you, Kitten, they know who I am.They know this scene doesn’t happen. Unbeknownst to her, tomorrow, that photo will be in some gossip rag and Mom will be harassing my phone, talking shit about grand-babies.

When she looks like she might flee me, I ground her with a hand on her arm. “Calm down.”

She blinks, and then she deflates. Her head tips to my chest and she just lets it sit there. Finally, after a long pause where I know for certain another few shots have been taken, she murmurs, “The swimsuits were a lot, Cash. Today has been a lot. You’re spending money you don’t have to spend.”

The money doesn’t mean a thing. “Wrenlee—”

“Let me finish.” She lifts her head, her eyes soft and pleading. “It makes me feel like—like—I owe you something.”

“You owe me nothing.”

“But—”

I tip my face to hers. “Your turn to listen. I’m not doing this because I feel like I have to. I’m doing this because I want to. Because you’re mine—” When her lips part to tell me that she isn’t really mine, I cut her off again. “Because while you’re under my roof, spending your time at my gigs, standing under my arm, sacrificing your time for me—you’re mine to take care of. My responsibility, and fuck, my honor. So, let me buy you a jacket and a few outfits, yeah?”

She wets her lips, pulling that pouty bottom one into her mouth again as she thinks. I can see she still doesn’t like it, but this girl also likes to please. She’s not defiant by nature. Not argumentative or volatile. She’s sweet to her core, and the last thing a man like me deserves.

Still, I’m taking her. All of her.

“One condition,” she says firmly. “I get to buy you lunch.”

“Nope.” I never said I wasn’t defiant, argumentative, and volatile. I’m all those things and more.

Her face twists into the cutest expression of frustration, I’ve gotta clench my back teeth to keep from hooting when she stomps her foot. “You’re unreasonable.”

I shrug. “This is me, baby.”

Her eyes start to roll, but she pins them to me instead. “I’m not going to win this, am I?”

“Nope.”

“Fine.” She glares at me, her mind clearly working. “I’ll just do more around the condo. Either way, I’ll earn these clothes.”

“Stubborn.”

She gives me a wry look. “Says the pot to the kettle.”

“Come.” I slide my hand around her back. “Let’s feed you before you become even more irrational from hunger.”

This time, she does roll her eyes.

When I start to guide her to a restaurant, she shakes her head and scowls as she throws down, “Food court.”

I think about arguing just for the sake of getting her riled up but decide to give in with a grin. “Whatever you want.”

Wrenlee scoffs cutely. The girl is adorable. I have a feeling I could watch her all day, every day. She fascinates me like no one else I’ve ever met. She decides she wants a big greasy burger and fries, so I double her order, we get our grub and pick a table in the crowded space. She’s not shy about digging in, clearly starving.

“You eat breakfast?”

“No.” When I narrow my gaze on her, she shrugs as she pushes a fry between red lips.

I have something else I’d like to push between those lips.Damn, when did I start thinking like a sex-starved teenager? Right, when I moved this pretty little thing in with me and agreed to celibacy.

A moment of lunacy.

“Why not?”

“As I recall, someone distracted me in the kitchen before I could get to the eating part.”

I take a bite of my burger. “Making you squirm was worth it.”

She blushes. My dick feels heavy. I want to know this woman. I’ve never wanted to know a woman. Not like I want to know her.

“What’s the goal after school?”

She blinks in surprise, but it’s the joy that hits her face that arrests me. “I want to be an editor. Find all the great stories people need in their lives and bring them into the world.” She sighs. “That’s my dream. And maybe one day, if I’m good at it and I’ve got what it takes, I want to own my own publishing house.” She waves her hands like the dream is silly. “But that’s way off in the future.”

“You want it, do it.”

She gives me a funny look. “It’s more complicated than that.”

“How so?”

“It takes money, for one thing. A lot of money. And I need experience, which I’ll get.” She nibbles another fry. “I’m just not sure after getting the experience I’ll want that responsibility, you know?”

I get it, so I nod. “Sure.”

“What about you? What’s the deal with the band?”

My eyes lift to her, studying her as she eats. “Devils Heartbreak is my life. I’m taking it all the way.”

“So, you’ll be famous. Like, really famous? World tours, that kind of thing?”

“That’s the plan.”

She swipes a fry through a pile of ranch dressing, popping it into her mouth. The combination is enough to make a man cringe, and yet I think she’s cute doing it. She chews and swallows, her face twisting as she says gently, “I don’t think I could handle it.”

My heart skips. “What?”

“A life of fame.”

She better get used to it. If I get my way; this girl is going to be standing beside me through it all.

I always get my way. Not because I’m a jackass who cries until he gets it, but because I fucking work for it. I don’t stop working for what I want until I have it. Then I work to keep it.

“It’s not so bad.”

She makes a noise between a laugh and a snort. “How do you know? You’re not famous.”

My parents are.Instead, I say, “What turns you off about it?”

She lifts a shoulder. “I don’t know. Probably the way everyone thinks they have a right to your life just because you’re famous. The way people speculate about everything, creating drama that you ultimately have to deal with. Just doesn’t appeal to me, is all.”

“What if someone you loved was famous?”

She frowns, tugging back on her straw. “What do you mean? Like family?”

“Like your lover.”

“Oh.” She does laugh this time, her cheeks stained a pretty, apple red. “I’m not worried about that.”

“Why not?”

Her laughter dies at my seriousness. “Um.” She pulls her long ponytail over her shoulder, and I get the sense she’d be hiding behind that curtain if she didn’t have it pulled up. “I don’t really date. When I do start dating, I doubt I’ll choose someone famous. So that won’t be a problem.”

“You don’t date?”

She shakes her head. “No.”

“Ever?”

Brows pinching, she keeps shaking her head. “Not really.”

I lean back in my chair, studying her. “Why not?”

A pretty pink tongue pokes out to wet full lips. “I was awkward in high school, more of a bookworm than anything. And I spent a lot of time with my dad. There were some guys but—” She gives a helpless little shrug. “It was never serious.” Her eyes land on me and she leans forward, asking, “What about you?”

“You askin’ me if I date, Kitten?”

“You asked me. It’s only fair.”

“I’ve had a few girl—friends.”

“Anything serious?”

“Nope.”

For some reason, I can see my answer displeases her. That displeases me. Because isn’t that a thing chicks feel when the guy they like has a history of something serious with another woman? Displeasure? Jealousy?

Wrenlee almost looks put out I’ve never had something serious with a chick.

She pushes away her food, a hand on her belly. “I’m stuffed.”

I raise a brow. “You’re not going to finish?”

She leans forward to push her half-eaten burger my way. “You can, if you want it.”

Something about the gesture feels familiar in a way that even kissing doesn’t. Candace does this very same thing to Ian, Mom the same with Dad. It’s a gesture I’ve only seen from people in real, serious, committed relationships. I fucking love that she’s doing it now with me, entirely unaware what it means.

I take her burger without a word, demolishing it in only a few bites. Then I stand, drop our shit into the trash, and tell her, “One more stop.”

Begrudgingly, she relents, “Fine.”