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“Eden, wait.” A hand curled around my elbow. “Where’s the fire?”
I swung around, hand balled into a fist, and it was only thanks to the last wisps of my fast-evaporating control that I managed to keep it from flying. “Don’t touch me.”
Luke let go but didn’t back up. Clearly the man had a death wish. “Easy now, genius. Count to ten.”
“Fuck ten, and fuck you. Howdareyou,” I went on, hearing my voice shake with a rage so immense I didn’t even care that I was letting it all hang out for him to see. Heneededto see it, by God. He was the maker of my misery and creator of my chaos. He could fucking drown in it. “How dare you bring me here to be put in a situation where I get cornered not by one monster, but two, and then interrogated like I’m the world’s most dangerous criminal. For the last time, I’m not the criminal here, okay? But if you keep coming at me, you just might push me to become one.”
“Meaning you might become dangerous?”
“Exactly!”
“Really? Dangerous how? Like violent?”
God, did I have to draw him a damn picture?”Yes.”
“Like with fisticuffs, or are we back to claiming that you could shoot my eyes out with little Ralphie’s Red Rider BB gun?”
“God, I hate you,” I said fervently, tears of impotent rage tightening like a fist in my throat when it finally dawned on me that he was making fun of my legitimate issues with him jerking me around and generally being an asshole. “I hate you so much.”
Something alarming changed in his face. “Watch your mouth, Eden.”
“Ido,” I raged, not even caring that his expression should have been a red-flag warning. “You want me to stop being polite, monster? Well, this is me kicking polite to thefuckingcurb and being as real with you as you’ll ever get. Ihateyou, do you hear me? I hate you, I hate—”
The savage venting of my wrath was abruptly cut off when his mouth came down on mine. An explosion of madness erupted in me, as if his kiss were the equivalent of a match being thrown into a vat of gasoline. My higher brain function burned down to the ground, and all thought of winning verbal jousts with my personal monster went up in a puff of smoke. All that was left was the truest essence of me, and that essence was a fierce wanton that craved to become a part of this man.
And to make him a part of me.
My fingers curled around the lapels of his jacket and held on to him like I was drowning and he was the only thing left keeping me afloat. Maybe that was truer than I was willing to admit. For as long as I could remember, I had been alone in a sea of isolation created first by circumstance and then by self-preservation. It was a quiet, depthless pool that no one even knew was there, and wouldn’t be able to understand its existence even if they did. To the outside world I was the accomplished, polished, pampered daughter of Truman Steadfast, and no one looked any further than that.
Except Luke.
For all his faults, Lukesawme. He knew there was so much more to me than met the eye. I may have hated him—and in that moment I was sure I did—but because he saw the hidden me, the real me, it was as if that tiny part of me almost… almost…
Loved him.
I was so done with stormy kisses that left me a hot, wet mess, promising a satisfaction that he never delivered. This time I’d have him moaning and forgetting that he felt his job was to pick me apart. I would make this man forget everything except how much he wanted me. Needed me.Cravedme.
And then I’d walk away.
See how much he liked it.
I had no clear memory of wanting to push him back so that I’d have him up against a circular concrete pillar, but I was crystal clear on how he turned me at the last minute, so that it was my back against the cold concrete, and not his. Okay. Fine by me. As long as I had his mouth, and I could feel the swift hardening of his cock against my pelvis, I had every confidence that I had him under my control.
When the pressure of his mouth lessened I brought him back down for a deeper kiss, spearing one hand into his hair to hold him in place while the other one ran down his back, slipped under the line of his jacket and pulled out the shirt tucked into his waistband. I didn’t want his mouth to leave mine. I told myself it was because I didn’t want to hear any more of his talk, and that much was true. But there was no denying I loved the feel of his mouth on mine. His lips were strong and hot, fitting so perfectly to mine it was if they had been molded for just that purpose.
Which was probably the case. Karma was a vindictive bitch, after all. She’d created the one man who was destined to bring me nothing but torment and misery, then sent him across my path to destroy everything I’d tried to build for three long years.
Worth it, my idiotic brain whispered, even as I slid a hand under his shirt to explore the warm silk of his skin for the first time.Totally worth it.
“You don’t give a damn about playing by the rules, do you?” He managed to break his lips from mine just far enough to whisper those words into my open mouth. “Do you want me to fuck you right here, right now, in a piss-perfumed parking garage where any bum off the street could stumble in and see us? Because I’m one goddamn breath away from doing it.”
Damn it, when he put it like that… “Is this not romantic enough for you?”
“You don’t know the meaning of romance if you have to ask, but that’s okay. I’ll teach you all about it tonight.”
My stomach did a dizzy little flip. “Tonight?”
“Yeah, tonight.” He kissed me again, hot and deep, before pulling away to gaze down into my face with something close to a scowl. “I’m taking you home with me after work, and there’s nothing you can do or say that’s going to change that. Find a way to cope.”
