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Her breath hitched and he knew it was a sob that shuddered through her body.
“My Sabella.” He turned her to him, pulling her legs over his thigh and cradling her in his arms as he stared down at the tear tracks on her face. “I won’t lie to you. I can’t do that. I can’t tell you I’m going to stay and that we’re going to fulfill the dreams we each have.” He touched the tears on her face. “We can’t do that to each other, or for each other. I’m not your husband, Sabella. And we both know no one else is going to fill your heart but your husband.”
He pushed her, he had to push her. She had to realize what could happen. She had to face it.
Her eyes flashed.
He caught the hand that aimed at his face as surprise stuttered through him.
He stared at the hand, then at the anger flushing her face.
“Sabella, did you just try to smack me?” he asked her carefully.
It had been one of their rules during their marriage. She could throw anything she pleased, she could scream, cuss, she could call him a dirty son of a bitch, but she was never to try to hit him. Or to surprise him. No running up to goose him, or jumping out from corners.
His reflexes were too well honed, that survival instinct inside him too well developed to allow her to know any fear of him.
He wouldn’t hurt her, but he’d be damned if he wanted her afraid he would hurt her when he had his hand around her neck and had her on the floor before either of them thought.
“You’re lucky I don’t try to shoot you!” She scrambled off his lap, stumbled on the bench below, and would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her.
He stared back at her in surprise. One second she was sweet and soft in his arms, now she was spitting at him like a little cat.
“Where the hell are you going?” He grabbed his jacket and followed after her as she began striding, almost running, along the path back to the parking lot. “Dammit, Sabella.”
“Go to hell!”
“I’ve been there, thank you,” he retorted. “I opt not to return, if you don’t mind.”
“Then go wherever the hell you go when you drive off in the evenings.” She waved a hand back at him, her expression, the set of her body, flat furious. “I told you the other night, Noah Blake. I’ve had enough.”
“Well, maybe I haven’t,” he muttered.
He hadn’t had enough of her sweet touch and he sure as hell hadn’t had enough of her laughter, her kisses, or her presence next to him.
“Well, maybe that’s too damned bad. Because I don’t like your rules and I don’t like the game you’re playing with me.” She turned in the middle of the parking lot then, turned to face him, and Noah came to a hard stop.
If he hadn’t seen the determination in her eyes the other night, he saw it now. Naked pain, anger, and self-confidence.
He asked himself again, Where was the woman he had married? This wasn’t the helpless little blonde, but damned if she didn’t turn him on more than she ever had.
“I’m trying damned hard not to play games with you.” He propped his fists on his hips and glared back at her. “Dammit, Sabella, I’m trying to be honest here. I don’t want to hurt you.”
She stood beneath the parking lot lights, her hair falling around her face and shoulders in thick waves, her slender hips cocked, one hand propped on one hip, the other hand hanging loose and ready at her side.
“I don’t want your honesty.” She sneered at him. “Shove it. It sucks.”
She turned and started walking.
“Where the hell are you going?” He strode after her, caught her arm, and pulled her to a stop. “Back to that damned bar where those cowboys can sniff around you like wolves after fresh meat? The hell you are.”
“Oh my, Mr. No-commitment. Are we jealous?” The sarcasm in her voice was doing things to him. He could feel it. Like that fucking fever rising inside him, filled with lust, dominance, and a dark, hungry need. “You’re right. You’re not my husband. My husband had better sense than to tell me when I could or couldn’t do something.”
She had never confronted him like this during their marriage. Sarcastic and defiant. She had always spoiled him, and he saw that now. And the love that rose inside him threatened to strangle him. As did the pride. And fuck it, the fear.
He wasn’t the man she had loved six years ago. The man who crooned Irish lullabyes to her, or the man who would whisper “forever” in Gaelic because it made her shiver with pleasure.
He was scarred, changed. Inside, the man he was had been scarred forever, and admitting it to her would kill him. She would want answers. This Sabella would demand answers. And when she learned that for four years he had refused to let anyone come for her, she would hate him. Hate him because she would realize that he’d thought her weak. Weak and unable to handle the monster he was. And that would destroy her pride.
