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I pause, about to lay into her for her assumption, but I haven’t told her the truth, and why should she believe anything else. “Go to sleep, Rose.”
“Fuck off,” she grumbles.
I rub myself along her backside, and she twists away and out of my grasp again. “No, you don’t get to say you don’t want me, then keep pushing me like you have been. Either you want to touch me and keep me or you don’t touch me at all.”
I glare because I don’t like ultimatums, and this one sounds pretty final. “You think you can forgo my tongue on your clit forever?”
She rolls over to give me her back again. “When I feel the need, I’ll just have to find someone else to handle it.”
It takes all my self-control not to claim her right there, take her and make her mine for good. But it would be the end of life as she knows it. I’d never let her go, and she’d hate me for trapping her, the same way she always does when I do the same with her body.
I stare at the ceiling for a long time, wishing things were different, that we were different people. I’d never wanted to be anyone else, but for her, I want to be better. Someone worthy, someone she could need.
When she starts snoring, I climb out of bed and head into my office. With two days of council protection, I can at least check in with Adrian and get a little work done. The council bitch won’t breach another council’s space to get to me.
For now, for once, I’m safe. Thanks to Rose and her too soft heart.
20
ROSE
When I wake, I roll toward the sunlight, my body feeling tight and pliant at the same time, in a delicious sort of way. I reach out, but Kai isn’t beside me. I’m alone, and I’m not sure why that hurts because we’ve never slept in the same bed before. Never touched the way we did last night.
I close my eyes and remember, causing a heavy pulse to build in my clit. I’d never felt that before either. The pleasure built until I almost felt like I’d break apart. And when I did crack open, it was worth it.
Intent on finding him and apologizing for how I acted afterward, I shove the covers back, quickly brush my teeth, and hunt around the apartment for him. Light gleams off buildings in heavy bands, but I can’t peel my eyes away. Until I reach the kitchen and find him shirtless, flipping pancakes onto a plate. Now nothing would induce me not to look.
“Good morning,” he says and shoves a cup of coffee across the bar toward me. I take it, wrapping my hands around it, waiting for him to say something. Maybe scold me for being ungrateful, anything.
Instead, he hands me a plate of pancakes and continues making more for himself. I douse them in syrup, keeping my eyes on the broad planes of his back, his muscles shifting with every flip of his spatula. When did making pancakes become so sexy?
I take another bite, watching, waiting for him to finish and sit down with me.
When he does, I turn to face him on the stool. “So, what’s going on?”
He raises an eyebrow in question. “What do you mean?”
I wave at the pancakes, him shirtless, the newspaper spread over the other side of the counter.
He only shakes his head like he doesn’t understand. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
I bite my lip and gaze at the chocolate pancakes on my plate. Maybe he just felt like cooking. It doesn’t have to mean anything.
He made it clear last night, but none of this has to mean anything. The problem is, I’ve spent so much time trying to convince myself that other things that happened to me meant nothing that now, I crave something real. Whatever is between us is real, even if he wants to deny it.
I have no choice but to let him.
Instead of trying to explain, I take a bite of my food and consider my options. He focuses on his own meal, and I find myself with a new awareness of both my body and his.
Every time he moves, I can’t help but look. Each shift of his muscles draws my eyes.
Eventually, I give up on breakfast and go back to the bedroom for a quick shower.
It’s the most intense shower I’ve ever taken as I wait to see if he’ll join me. Of course, he doesn’t. And why would he? I’m nothing to him, not even when I’m trying to save his life.
After the shower, I hunt him down, and I find him in his office already working.
Curious, I circle around to get a look over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”
