Free DEBT by Jessica Gadziala

ignore the way my insides felt like they were shaking, and went with blunt. "I was a baby last night, huh?"
    I made the right choice.
    I knew that because his wolf smile came back, stretched a little.
    "Last night you were a girl in desperate need of an orgasm," he said casually, like it meant nothing, like it wasn't a huge insult.
    I was in desperate need of an orgasm?
    Okay, granted, maybe there was some truth in that. But that was completely beside the point. People didn't say shit like that to other people. Men didn't say dismissive things like that to women. That was the problem right there, I realized. He was waving it off. He was acting like all he had done was rub my sore shoulders. Like it was nothing. I thought that was what I wanted. Hell, I had spent over an hour in the bathtub convincing myself of just that. I woke up with every intention of brushing it off, pretending it was barely a blip on my radar. That was what I wanted.
    Or so I thought.
    Christ, how needy and pathetic was it to want or need it to have meant something to him? What did that say about me?
    Whatever it said, I needed to get a grip. I needed to play it cool too.
    "Glad we cleared that up. Though next time you feel I am in desperate need of an orgasm, rest assured my vibrator has it handled. Multiple times over. "
    As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. I knew what they were, how he would see them. He would see them the same way I saw him telling me to have the balls to speak my mind, he would see them as a challenge.
    Crap.
    But, to my surprise, Byron made a low, rumbling sound in his chest that seemed akin to a chuckle. "Good for you."
    "Good for me?" I parroted back, not sure what the hell he was talking about.
    "Did you see it in your job description that you had to take whatever shit I dished out?"
    "Oh, you mean the job description that demands I wear a whore's uniform and watch you shower?"
    "That'd be the one," he said, pushing off the wall, moving toward me. And there was something primal in his gate, predatory, like a cat stalking its prey, like he knew he had me.
    Well, he fucking didn't .
    "I believe it was in the fine print under 'I can threaten her father's life or well being anytime she tries to disobey me'," I snapped, effectively stopping him about a foot in front of me.
    "Listen..."
    "No," I said, shaking my head, folding my arms over my chest, refusing to take a step in retreat, but wanting everything about me to scream that I was in no way inviting him into my space.
    "No?" he asked, brow going up as he searched my face.
    "No. I'm not going to listen to you. What could you possibly say to make that okay? Nothing. Shakespeare, with all his words, could never find the right ones to put together to make that not completely and utterly screwed up. And, well, let's face it, you're no Shakespeare. So I'm not going to listen to whatever flimsy little excuses or explanations you can come up with to somehow make you feel like less of a monster. My father is the only person in this entire shitty fucking world who gives a damn about me. And, yeah, he's a fuck up. And, yeah, I've had to clean up his messes one too many times. But he is all I have. And you are trying to keep me obedient by threatening to take everything from me. So take whatever you were going to say and shove it up your ass. I don't want to hear it."
    "Prue," he said, his voice whisper-soft, the sound of my name on his lips was way, way too intimate, too familiar, too appealing. He closed the space between us, his hand going to my chin, snagging it, and dragging it up so he could pin my eyes with his dark ones. "I'm not going to hurt your father."
    "Forgive me if I am finding that hard to believe. One minute, your word is everything, the next you're going to round up my dad if I walk out of your bathroom, the next you're back to saying you won't hurt him."
    "My word is everything. But if you remember, that word was that I wasn't going to hurt you. I