In the meantime, this house would have to be rented out.
The first set of prospective tenants stood on the doorstep as Mal and I approached the gate. Wait a second … The guy looked familiar.
Lucas turned to glare at me from the porch steps. “Hello, Fee.”
Oh, shit. “What are you doing here, Lucas. You got your money.”
“You think this is about the money?” he asked.
“I doubt you came for a social visit. What do you want?”
“The house. This house. I backed off because I thought you loved it, that you were going to raise a family in it, but imagine my horror when I saw it up for rent.”
He’d booked the viewing appointment? I grit my teeth to stem a curse. “You didn’t back off, Lucas. You were offered a buyout, and you took it. And whether I rent out the house or live in it is none of your fucking business.”
“It is when you’re making money off it,” Melody said.
Lucas shot her a look of reproach.
She paled and took a step back.
He was pissed off that he’d been paid only enough to put a down payment on a house, a huge down payment, but he probably still had a hefty mortgage to pay. Whereas I didn’t. I owned this house outright now, and any rent was more money in my pocket. Not that I needed it. Conah had shown me the Dominus bank account. All the fucking zeros.
“You owe me, Fee,” Lucas said. “You owe me for being the one that wasn’t adopted. You owe me for the years I spent struggling.”
His words were a slap in the face. Aunt Lara had decided against adopting him because of me. Because she’d thought Lucas and I would become a couple. Was this my fault? If I hadn’t loved him, would Aunt Lara have adopted him? Would things have turned out differently for him?
Mal pressed a hand to the small of my back and leaned in to whisper in my ear. “What do you really believe, Fee? Tell him what you really believe.”
Lucas’s gaze flitted to Mal for the first time. He frowned as if he wasn’t sure where Mal had come from.
“Different guy,” Melody confirmed smugly. “The other one was blond with blue eyes and pouty lips.”
Someone had paid close attention.
Lucas snorted. “What happened? Did the other guy dump you?”
Anger swirled in my chest and stole my voice as I struggled to hold it in check.
“No,” Mal answered for me. “She upgraded.” He smiled amiably. “But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, sweetheart?” He looked from Melody to Lucas and shrugged. “Some of us get the crème de la crème while others sip from the sewer.”
Lucas’s lips turned down. “Listen here, mate—”
“I’m not your bloody mate.” Mal’s tone dropped, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention.
I may not want to lose my temper, but I doubted Mal had any qualms about unleashing his wrath.
I stepped between the two guys. “Please, just leave, Lucas. You have your money, and the rest isn’t my problem. Aunt Lara was her own boss, and her decisions were hers alone.”
“Was it her decision to crash the car?” Lucas asked.
Ice rushed through my veins. Had he really just brought that up? If I hadn’t already made peace with Aunt Lara, then maybe his words would have provoked a different reaction from me, but unluckily for him, all he elicited was pure unadulterated rage. It swelled inside me, pushing against my skin and burning out of my eyes to sear him with a glare that had him taking a physical step away from me.
“You and I are done.” My voice shook with rage. “Don’t come here again, Lucas. If you do, I won’t be responsible for my actions. Do you hear me?”
My hold on the rage had slipped, and it now wanted out. A red haze tinged the edges of my vision. My breath came faster. Shit. I was going to lose it.
“Go!” I snapped.
Lucas looked like he wanted to argue, to stand his ground, but his fiancée had more sense. Her face paled. She grabbed his arm and tugged him down the steps and out of the gate, giving Mal and me a wide berth.
I took deep breaths. It should be retreating now. Calming down, but the rage was spiraling upward, ready to explode.
“Mal …” My voice was a rasp.
“Fuck.” He grabbed my shoulders, turned me to him, and then pressed his lips to mine.
The rage faltered as a new kind of heat began to bloom in its place. Mal kissed my top lip, and then my bottom lip. He licked the seam of my mouth, urging me to part my lips.
“You don’t want to be pissed off, Fee. You want to kiss me.” His voice was a low thrum that vibrated through me, settling at my core.
Anger still simmering in my veins, I grasped his shirt and tugged him close. I parted my mouth to accept his tongue, to wrestle it with mine, to nip and bite and suck on his full bottom lip. He wasn’t manipulating me. My shields were up. This was all me, and damn, it felt fucking good.
I channeled my anger into that kiss, into bruising and claiming, and gradually, increment by increment, the rage leeched from my blood, and my body relaxed against him. The kiss softened and morphed into something all too intimate. The devouring melted to savoring and tasting. My pulse grew sluggish. My head grew light, and my stomach filled with moths. What the—
I pulled back sharply and covered my mouth with my hand. “I’m sorry.”
Mal’s expression was dazed, his eyes pools of forbidden desire. He swept his tongue across his bottom lip, licking away a droplet of blood. Had I done that? Had I bitten him? I tasted the copper in my mouth.
Yep. I totally had.
We stood face to face. A foot apart. Both breathing unevenly.
I didn’t know what to say. “I didn’t mean to …”
He was the first to recover. “No worries,” he said. “Feeling better?”
The rage was gone, but my body was in an altogether different state of high alert now, the kind that involved a bed and nakedness.
A slow clap interrupted the moment.
I stared at the teenager in the beanie hat standing on the opposite side of the street.
“That was fucking hot.” He plugged his headphones back in and walked off.
I locked gazes with Mal. His mouth twitched, and then we both burst into fits of laughter, and just like that, the tension was defused.
“You kissed him?” Cora stared at me, wide-eyed. “But you abhor him. You think he’s skanky with all the women parading in and out of his room. You find him despicable.”
I had used those words, but, “He’s not despicable, exactly.”
I changed into my comfy sweatpants and picked out a cream, long-sleeved T-shirt. The material was soft against my skin. Worn and comfortable. It was good to be back. I needed food and bed and not to think about Mal and the way he’d kissed me. Thoroughly.
“Wait,” Cora said. “Rewind here, babe. Your exact words to me only a week ago were that he was a walking dick. Just a dick that likes to stick its head in every hole.”
I opened my mouth to protest.
“No.” She held up a hand to stall my words. “Those were your words.” She grinned. “You just kissed a dick. With tongue. You tongued a dick.”
“Fuck you.”
Cora closed her eyes, stuck out her tongue, and waggled it about in the air.