Page 41 of Sun-Kissed Fangs
Harper waited for a jab to follow. For Maya to tense or sneer or do anything but look at her like that. Without a hint of frustration in her gold-speckled irises.
“Yeah,” Harper mumbled. “I guess.”
She shouldn’t be reacting like this. Maya was friendly with everybody, adjusting the intensity to match the person she talked to. But this… this felt special, somehow. As though that light, warm tone was summoned for Harper and Harper alone.
“The rumors aren’t the only thing I dislike about this place.” Maya extended her hand, pushing aside a lock of Harper’s hair, and then caressed her cheek. “It’s not the first time I’ve seen your face bruised. As tough as you are, that’s a trend I don’t care for.”
“If you don’t like it, you should quit.”
“And leave you here unprotected? Not a chance.”
Harper blamed Maya’s pretty smile for her heart skipping a beat. An easy thing to do, since it happened every bloody time Maya looked at her like that. If she ever decided to take her charms to the floor instead of staying behind the bar, they’d all be fucking screwed.
“I bet you say that to all the girls,” Harper said, but her tone was less teasing than intended. If anything, it sounded glum.
She leaned back, ignoring the pit that formed in her stomach when Maya’s fingers fell away.
“And don’t act like I’m the only reason you’re still here. You wouldn’t be working at the Penny if you had other options.”
Maya shrugged. “You don’t know how well-connected I am. When I decide to flee this place, I might even take you with me.”
“Yeah, right. Even if you did that, there would be no point. A change of location can’t save you from bad decision-making.” Harper gestured at her cheek. “The last shiner I wore couldn’t be blamed on this place. Well, maybe a little, actually. Most of our fights near the end concerned me working here. But I guess I should have seen it coming. Playing with someone like Kieran is a recipe for unwanted bruising.”
Maya’s smile tensed, then faded entirely. “What do you mean?”
“You’re into the kinkier side of life. You know what I mean.”
“Pretend I don’t and tell me.”
Her voice held no warmth now. It seemed like she had intended for the conversation to go in another direction and now made a complete pivot. Transforming the flirty glint in her eyes into one of hard steel.
“There are rules,” Harper said. “If I didn’t respect him, he wouldn’t respect me. That’s the whole point. Last time we were together, he said something dumb, like usual. I pointed it out, and he got pissed about it. Decided to show just how angry he was with a bit of carnal punishment, but I wasn’t in the mood for that. That’s when he hit me in the face.”
That wasn’tquitewhat had happened. The night they broke up, Kieran had started an all too familiar argument. He wanted her to quit, saying that she didn’t need to work anymore since he could take care of her.
She’d countered, as always, that she could take care of herself just fine. And, like always, he’d gotten upset about it. At that point, angry sex had been the norm rather than the exception, but it wasn’t justangrythat time. It was scary, too.
She hadn’t realized at first. Like a drowning victim who didn’t realize the current was pulling them away from shore, everything had been fine until it wasn’t.
Getting dragged into his bedroom was expected. As was her being shoved down on the bed. But then he turned her over, held her down, and smothered her protests by clasping his hand over her mouth.
The only reason she got away was because she landed a lucky kick between his legs. When she’d then shouted his ear off, his solution for shutting her up was a backhand across the face.
To think she’d liked that once. Not the hitting, but everything that came before it. It had felt fun, safe, and exhilarating all in one.
In the beginning, he’dlikedwhen she prodded at him. Kieran being provoked was an act, and the consequences of doing so had just been an adult version of playing pretend. Not a frightening trap she had only escaped because of chance.
Harper had just dismissed it as Kieran being a possessive asshole and nothing more. But the anger rising in Maya’s dark eyes suggested something else entirely.
“You told him to stop, and he didn’t listen?” Maya asked, shock underlining every word. Harper’s brows knitted together.
“Why would he do that? Safe words don’t count during punishments.”
Maya’s irises darkened until they looked pure black.
“What?”
There wasn’t even a hint of humor in her voice now. Instead, her eyes filled with so much fury that she became almost unrecognizable. It might be an extreme thought, but Harper had the sudden feeling that if Kieran had been present right then, Maya might have killed him.
