Read Deadly Sin (Cassandra Farbanks) for Free Online Page B

He saw me brokering resistance one arm stretched out and pointing where he’d parked the jeep. Trying to speak again, I looked at Hamilton. Before I knew it, I was walking towards the jeep with no idea why I was obeying. Later, I reasoned I didn’t relish walking home in that dress as the night wore on and it got colder. The jeep unlocked, I pulled the door open and scrambled into the seat. I ignored DJ’s exchanged pleasantries with Hamilton before joining me. I put the seat belt on and stared at the dashboard completely enraged, at DJ and myself. I didn’t like his high handed treatment and worse, that I let him order me around. I got in the car with him again, even though I’d sworn earlier I wouldn’t. DJ saw the tense line of my shoulder and the furrow of my brow, and let the silence hang in the air. He just drove and let me brood.
    I felt better when we got back to town, knowing the drive would soon be over. When he pulled up to the curb outside my building, I couldn’t get out of my seatbelt fast enough. I would say goodbye and thank him for the lift when I was safely on the pavement. I heard a click and the pin shot down as I reached for the door. I tried pulling it up but it wouldn’t go. Furious again, I turned to DJ.
    “You let me out of this car right now.”
    “With all due respect, no, no I won’t. I want to talk to you, and if this is the only way to get you to sit still and listen, so be it.” I crossed my arms over my chest and fell back against the seat, sullen. I know that was childish, but he locked me in. He clearly started it.
    “Cassandra, I like you. In fact I more than like you. I thought you liked me too.” I sighed, giving in and trying to be an adult. I turned to face him and uncrossed my arms.
    “I did like you. I still do, but you’re making it awfully hard on me. You keep pushing for something from me that I don’t want.” He nodded, understanding, but kept on.
    “We have a good time together once you relax. You’re attracted to me. I’ve felt you react to me. We’d be really good together. I don’t understand why you won’t consider it.”
    “Because that’s not what I want.”
    “I don’t think you know what you want,” he said a little tersely, gripping the wheel. It was his turn to be sullen.
    “Maybe I don’t, and maybe I will change my mind,” I said, knowing how unlikely that was. I was a girl who made a decision and stuck to it.
    “But you keep pushing yourself at me, putting yourself in my way every chance you get and it’s not an attractive quality.” In fact it was bloody irritating, but I was trying once again to be nice and let him down gently.
    “You like your space, I get that, but you know you can count on me. You must know that or you wouldn’t have called me that time.”
    DJ was referring to when Trinket, my assistant slash housekeeper – when I first met her – broke the lock on my door to enter my apartment. I’d called DJ because at the time, I had been mad at Simian who was the only other man I knew who had do it yourself skills.
    “Maybe if we just had sex,” he said. I gaped at him. He saw the look on my face and closed his mouth, cutting off what he was going to follow with.
    “No. I can’t do that.” It wasn’t that the idea of having sex with DJ hadn’t crossed my mind before. It had, but it just wasn’t a good idea. I wasn’t a one night stand kind of girl, and DJ would see that as a commitment because he wasn’t a one night stand kind of person either. There was also a third reason. I promised Aram that I wouldn’t have sex with anyone but him until I broke up with him officially. I loved him, but I put our relationship on hold while I found myself. He asked that of me and I agreed. Though at the time, I’d not been smart enough to exact the same promise from him. He could be having a merry old time while I lived like a nun. I shook that image out of my head in a hurry.
    All my energy left me and I felt deflated,