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“Kill or be killed, sweetheart.” He is cold, hard, decisive. He’s made up his mind. He has a plan and it’s a plan I have to change.
“No,” I hiss, bunching his shirt in my free hand. “No, you will not.”
“You don’t want him to die.”
Again with his damn accusations. “I don’t wantyouto die. Do you really think you could live with killing your father?”
“Live with it? I’d sleep like a baby if that man was gone. What don’t I knowagain,Harper? What did you bring me up here to confess?”
“Confess?” My anger ignites all over again. “I have nothing to confess. You already know what I have to say. There is no secret. There is noagain.Ihatethat you just said that to me.”
His jaw spasms and he looks right, seeming to struggle before he fixes me in a turbulent stare. “You know you teased me with a secret to get me up here.”
“I was desperate.I’m sorry.”
Anger boils in his eyes. “Don’t throw out taunts about secrets with me, Harper. Not now. Not after what we went through tonight.”
“Me? Look who’s talking. Don’t you accuse me of keeping secrets and taunting you. I never taunted you and I never kept a secret that I wanted to keep. I promised you on the plane that I have no more secrets.”
“But then you turned around and used the promise of another one to get me up here.”
I ball his shirt as tight as possible in my hand and step into him. “I said I had something you needed to hear.”
“I’m still listening,” he says. “I’m still waiting.”
And here it is. That moment of truth I committed to when I brought him up here, and I don’t hold back. “I have needed you since the moment we met and no amount of time or space would ever erase the impact you’ve had on me. Youaffect me.You scare me. You own me in ways I don’t want to be owned, and yet I do with you. If you do this, if you go at your father in the way I know you want to tonight, I’ll lose you again. And I don’t want to lose you again. I just found you.”
He doesn’t immediately reply.
He stares down at me, his eyes hooded, his expression inscrutable, seconds ticking by in which I start to fear I’ve said too much. I start to fear I’ve asked for too much. Time and his silence close in on me with such heaviness that I can’t breathe, but then he’s molding me to him, his fingers splayed on my lower back. “I’ve been obsessed with you since the moment I saw you across that pool, Harper. You affect me, too. You belong with me and I’mnotlosing you again.” His mouth closes down on mine, brutal and punishing, hot and seductive, long strokes of his tongue caressing mine until I can barely breathe. When he finally relents, his hand moves roughly over my breast, and his lips linger above mine, his breath hot, and his voice a near growl. “You’re mine now, Harper. I own you. No one gets to take you from me. You understand? No one.”
His emotions pound on me, punishing me like his kiss, the way he wants to punish them. “Eric—”
“They tried to kill you tonight. I believe that. You aren’t the one who ends up dead.”
“If you kill your father or your brother, you could go to jail. Then I do lose you again.”
“I’m way better than a common criminal, sweetheart. I won’t go to jail.”
Those words punish me yet again. He’s brutal. He’s a killer. And I love him. I do. I love him. “What if Walker screws up?”
“Walker won’t know. I handle my own dirty work. I’m going to take care of this and then I’m going to come back up here and fuck you in my bed just like I promised. And the word ‘again’ applies because I’m going to fuck you, lick you, and kiss you, again and again.” His fingers tangle in my hair, rough and erotic. “You’re never going to want to leave my bed. That’s a promise.” And then he’s kissing me again, sealing that promise with a deep, demanding stroke of his tongue before he orders, “Stay here,” he orders, and then he’s walking away.
I’m instantly cold, ice in my veins freezing every inch of me. I can’t let him leave. I dart forward and place myself between the door and him. “You will not kill anyone. That’s an order.”
He tangles his fingers in my hair again, his fingers biting. “You will not say those words again. You will not speak of murder. You will not speak of any of this. Understand?”
“No. No, I don’t understand.You will not—”
He turns me toward the door, pressing my hands on the hard surface, framing my body with his. “You will not repeat those words. Ever.”
“I’m not agreeing to that,” I pant out.
He shoves my hands over my head. “Damn it, Harper. You will listen to me.” He buries his face in my neck. “You will listen or I swear I’ll make you listen.”
There’s an erotic promise in those words that shouldn’t turn me on, not in the context he speaks them, but they do. They so do. “Make me then,” I challenge, welcoming whatever that means, my sex aching, wet. My nipples puckered and throbbing. I want whatever he’s offering. I want him here with me.
His hands slide over my waist, cupping my breasts, pinching my nipples through my shirt and bra. “I should,” he whispers. “I really fucking should, but I’m not going to. Not like this. Not when I’m like I am right now.Fuck.” He pushes away from me, leaving my sex aching and drenched, my body screaming for some unknown pleasure it’s been denied.
