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His anger slowly migrated into every feature of his face. “I won’t justify your nonsense with a response.”
“Then I’ll just let you get back to your workout.” I grabbed the banister and headed up the stairs. “Clearly, that’s a lot more important than our relationship—”
He shoved me against the wall on the staircase. Still coated in sweat from his workout, he looked at me with a furious gaze. “What do you want from me?”
My eyes flicked back and forth between his.
“I asked you a goddamn question.”
“I assumed everything would be different…”
“Be clear. Be concise.”
“Don’t play stupid with me—”
“Do I look stupid to you?” He raised his voice, acting like the enemy rather than the man who made love to me for hours on end.
“I don’t want separate bedrooms. I don’t want separate lives. I want to sleep beside you, even if that means your damn alarm wakes me up at the crack of dawn and I roll over in my sleep and try to ignore it. You went all the way there to get me back, just to keep me at arm’s length? That doesn’t make any sense.”
His hands were against the wall, blocking me in. He stared with that terrifying look, his breaths still deep from the workout he’d abruptly abandoned.
“It’s either all of me or none of me, Cauldron.”
“I said I would try, didn’t I?”
“And this is trying?” I asked incredulously. “Grave would do anything to have me, and you couldn’t care less.”
I knew I’d said the wrong thing because he looked livid. “What the fuck did you just say?”
I stared.
He inched closer to my face. “Don’t compare me to him ever again.” He lowered his voice, but it was more terrifying than if he’d yelled at the top of his lungs. It was sinister, packed with warning. “Understand me?”
I held my stare.
“I asked you a question.”
“I stand by what I said,” I said quietly.
He pulled his hands off the wall and stepped back, his look callous. “Then maybe you should go back to him.”
“Or maybe you should just give me what you promised.”
“I said I would try,” he snapped. “I never promised you a damn thing.”
“Going back to the way things used to be is not trying—”
“You think I fuck other women the way I fuck you?” He was back in my face, one hand against the wall. “You think I bury myself between a woman’s thighs all night long the way I do with you?”
“So, that was fucking?” I asked in disappointment. “Because I thought it was something more…”
Heartbeats passed, and he continued his stare. “I don’t talk like a pussy, Camille. I’m not going to say I made love to you last night. I’m not going to watch you sleep until you wake up in the morning. I’m not going to leave you little fucking notes on your nightstand that say how much I miss you or some bullshit like that.” He stepped back. “This is who I am. Plain and simple. I said I would try. Be grateful.”
“Be grateful… Wow.” Quite a bold thing to say. “Maybe I’ve spent the last few years fucking men for money, but I deserve a lot more than your bullshit. I deserve all the things you just mocked, and if you can’t give them to me, then I’ll find someone else who can.”
His reaction was subtle, but it looked like he’d been smacked in the face by an invisible palm. “Is that a threat?”
“It’s a premonition of what’s to come if you don’t try harder.”
His eyes narrowed.
“In case you forgot, Grave is no longer a problem. I don’t have to stay here anymore. I want more out of life, and if you don’t want to be part of that, then I need to move on. It’s as simple as that.”
“Your freedom came at a price. A price I had to pay. So, you aren’t going anywhere.”
“What price?” I asked. “Money? Am I livestock now?”
His eyes flicked back and forth between mine, his brow strained from his look of intensity. “You came here to escape Grave. I’m the reason you got what you wanted, and you should be a lot more grateful for that. You’re demanding more of me—when it should be the other way around.”
“Then what do you want from me? To fuck me until you get bored?”
“We’ll see where it goes.”
“See where it goes…” I shook my head. “So romantic. Cauldron, I don’t need to see where it goes to know I want more with you. If you’re still uncertain about that now, then you’re just wasting my time, making it harder than it needs to be…making it crueler than it needs to be.”
The sweat started to disappear, evaporating off his warm skin. He stared at me, his cheeks tinted red from the workout that still had residual effects.
