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She held her ground, but inside she was shaking with the truth of his words, with his nearness, with the pain of being at odds with him minutes after being warm and content in his arms and in his bed.
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Monica,” he said, his eyes fiercely tender as he stroked a loose sable hair and rubbed it between his fingers like it were precious. “Only the fact that the man you’re in love with is right here, and you want him with every bit of your being.”
She stiffened when he stroked his thumb along her lower lip, his voice dropping further. “Who is it you think of when you pleasure yourself? I know, Monica. I know who you think of, because it’s you who I think of, too.” He turned her face up to his when she tried to avoid his flaming green gaze. “Every woman to me is a mirage of you, but my God I’ve been eating grapes all my life and my body gets even hungrier when all it wants is this … fucking … red … apple … and I want you to feed it to me, my love. I want you to feed me every day of you, just you … my one obsession, my one sole addiction.”
She stepped back, her heart pounding, her systems trembling awake at his words. “Please don’t touch me. I can’t think when you touch me.” She raised her arms to hold him back, forcing herself to meet his gaze and the roiling force of the emotions flaming inside him, bearing herself to hold the weight of this startlingly new misery she was opening up inside her.
“You’re right. You’re right, Daniel,” she agreed, watching his face tighten at her admission. “My problem isn’t me, and it’s not them. My problem is for how long, how much, I’ve been trying to get over you.” His body tightened like a bowstring at the admission, and he took a hungry step forward, but she halted him with her hand again.
“Please, don’t. Don’t touch me.” She drew in a ragged breath. “Daniel, I thought if I caved in and found a way to be with you, it would ease. If you’re hungry, and eat, you feel it eased … but it doesn’t.” She shook her head. “My taxi is waiting. I just wanted to explain why I left and why I … can’t do this anymore. I need to step back and breathe.” He was staring at her with anger and frustration, holding himself as still as a statue with his hands tightly fisted at his sides. She impulsively cradled his jaw because she had to touch him, could not help it. “I can’t bear to think of us killing ourselves for each other like my parents.”
He caught her wrist and squeezed fiercely in a stunningly fast move, hissing through his teeth, “Have the balls to love me, Monica.”
“I can’t! You can’t feel for someone like this and not hurt each other, Daniel. You can’t feel this without doing something crazy. It’s so obvious to me now. I can’t even look at you without feeling … without feeling … undone!”
His eyes flashed with more hunger, more need, more frustration. “Baby, you undo me, too. The problem with your parents wasn’t that they loved each other too much, it was that they loved themselves more and were too damned proud to fucking forgive when the other screwed the hell up!”
The words, though oddly true, stung fierce as whiplashes. “How dare you judge my parents!” she gasped, then she was storming down the hall, unable to look at him any longer.
“Monica, I’m sorry…” He came walking behind her.
“Fuck you, Daniel. I don’t even want to be your friend anymore.”
“Damn you, I’m sorry.” Fiercely he grabbed her mid-step and spun her around. “We might hurt each other sometimes, that’ll be inevitable, but we’ll work it out. Hell, it’s my turn, Monica! Jesus, you’ve made me stand back and watch other men take my place at the side of the woman I love for years!”
“I don’t want love, I’ve never wanted love. The only reason I came to sleep with you was to see if sleeping with you would get it out of me!”
“How’s that fucking working out for you, huh? Is that all you made it out to be?” He caught her face between his hands and dropped his head to hers, nuzzling her softly, making her knees liquefy as he nibbled her nose. “Come with me to the Fall gala next weekend. As mine. My partner. My woman.”
Every effort in her body was focused on suppressing the shiver his touch, his words, his presence, elicited. “I can’t.”
He lowered his head and grazed her lips with his, seducing her with his words, his warm breath. “You can’t, or you won’t?” he urged.
“I can’t. I’m going with Roland.”
He pulled back with a jolt, stunned, and Monica quickly took this advantage to put even more distance between them. His face had gone blank, and her chest throbbed in a way she had never imagined it could possibly hurt. She felt like she had physically hurt him, like she had physically struck him with a paddle.
His voice was completely alien, a whisper full of pain and anguish and anger. “He’s not even what you want, damn you.”
“But he’s what I choose, Daniel.” Her voice shook uncontrollably. “You’re the prince of this city, whether you like it or not. You’re … you’ll forget about me. And maybe we can be friends in a couple of years, like last t
ime. I can’t do this, please understand. Good-bye, Daniel.” She pushed the button on the wall so that the heavy doors parted, and then she walked through them and out of his life.
* * *
The instant the doors closed behind her, Daniel spun around in a blinding rage. He grabbed the remote for his intelligence system, and slammed it impulsively into the wall, then he charged down his hall, all the while hating her, loving her. Hating her cowardice. Hating his own.
He was soon in the shower, leaning his head against the cold marble wall, cursing her to hell, cursing his life to hell, wondering why in the hell he had to be in love with the one woman who didn’t want him, who didn’t need him, who didn’t want to love him.
He groaned and slammed the heel of his palm into the wall, dying of sheer frustration. Before heading to the office, he stopped by Graves’s place. He was his best friend. The last time Daniel had been here, he had found out he was sleeping with Chloe, and he’d smashed Graves’s face in. Now he arrived to find his friend partially dressed in slacks and an open dress shirt, Chloe in a similar shirt that almost swallowed her up. Upon seeing her brother, she came up to him with her big concerned eyes, just like his, and wrap her arms around him just like he needed her to. “Danny, what’s wrong?”
He was just silent, putting his head against hers. She was little and sweet, his sister, and he wanted to sag from the goddamned tension of battling with Monica this morning. Chloe was so warm, so giving … why couldn’t Monica love him like she loved Graves? Goddamn it, why couldn’t Monica love him, period!
“Danny, talk to me.”
He dragged in a breath, then scraped a hand down her hair, missing the tender softness of Monica’s body against him, the way she went when she put down all her walls and put the damned Ice Maiden to bed, so there was only Monica in his arms, warm and taunting, hungry and wanting …
“I need a date for Saturday’s gala, Chlo. Would you mind if I stole you for a couple of hours that evening?” he asked her, then he glanced Graves, who watched, dark and somber, from the kitchen.
