Page 81 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
“Corbin told me, Christian. I know about your parents, about what happened to them. So yes, we know. People like us—we’re oil and water. We don’t mix.”
He came another step closer but Ember held her ground. He wasn’t going to push her around, not in her own apartment, not anywhere. Still, it felt like there was a rabid hummingbird trying to escape from inside her chest.
With fierce intensity, he asked, “Is that how you felt that night, before I was such an ass? Is that how you felt when I had you in my arms? When I was inside you? Like we didn’t mix?”
When I was inside you. A tremor of longing ran through her, but she pushed it aside, concentrating on the important thing: getting him to leave before her willpower crumbled, along with her pride.
“You think there’s going to be a happy ending to this, Christian? You think this can go any direction but south? Because I think you’re lying to yourself if you do.”
“Like you’re lying to yourself about wanting me to leave?”
I’m not lying to myself, I’m lying to you, she silently corrected him. She knew she wanted him to stay, which is precisely why he shouldn’t. She dropped her head into her hands and pressed her knuckles into her eye sockets, blocking out the sight of him. Softly, she begged, “Please, please, Christian don’t make this any harder for me—”
But she never got the rest of the sentence out of her mouth because suddenly he was right in front of her. Before she could jerk away, his arms had encircled her, one of his hands had fisted into her hair. He pinned her against him. His heat and strength burned her, straight through her clothes.
He pulled her head back and said roughly into her ear, “You think this is easy for me? None of this is easy, but that doesn’t make it wrong. You and I have something that I’ve never had with anyone else before, and even though it’s messed up and we can’t change the past, I’m not letting you go. We are going to work this shit out, right here, right now.”
“And I don’t get a say in any of this?” she cried, trying to push him away. It was like trying to move a mountain, and equally effective. “You just get to decide what’s going to happen and what I want doesn’t matter?”
“If you think for one second I’m going to believe that you don’t want me, you can forget it. You can fight me all you want but your body doesn’t lie.” He inhaled deeply against her neck. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped an octave. “And like it or not, you already admitted how you feel. You’re in love with me, little firecracker. Selfish bastard that I am, I’m not giving that up. That’s mine. You’re mine. So stop fighting it.”
Suddenly furious, wanting to hit something, Ember gasped. “You arrogant, cocky, vain, overbearing—”
“Dick?” he supplied, lifting his head to gaze at her. He wasn’t smiling, but there was a hint of laughter in his eyes that made her even angrier.
“Yes! Dick! Thank you!”
“You’re welcome.”
She hissed, “I don’t want to be with you, understand? My body might want to, but I don’t want to, and I don’t want your money or your charity or your help—”
He stiffened. The laughter in his eyes died. “Charity? What the hell—”
“Yes, charity, that’s what it’s called when you donate money to the helpless and the needy! I might not be the best businesswoman in the world, but that store is mine and it’s the only thing left I have of my father and I’m not ever going to sell it, you understand?”
He stared at her for a moment with a quizzical look on his face while she huffed and glared back at him. Her hands were pressed flat against his bare chest and she felt his heartbeat, fast and hard, beneath her palms.
“Ember, I wasn’t going to take the store from you. I wanted you to have the money for it, yes, but I was going to turn the ownership back over to you as soon as the purchase agreement was signed. I don’t want a bookstore, I just wanted you not to have to worry about money anymore. That store is always going to be yours, no matter what.”
Oh. Wow. The sharp edges of her fury fizzled. “Well…you still paid my rent—forever. I’m not a child, Christian. And I’m not in the market for a sugar daddy.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Is that why you moved?”
She looked away and bit her lip.
He sighed and the fist in her hair loosened. He cupped her face in his hand and turned it toward his. With his thumb, he gently pried her lower lip from between her teeth. “I’m going to take care of you because I want to and I need to and I can, not because I think you’re a charity case or a child, or a woman who can be bought—”
“I don’t need to be taken care of—”
“I wasn’t finished!” he said, hard, and her mouth snapped shut. He inhaled and exhaled slowly, then began again in a measured tone that belied how hard he was trying to maintain his patience. “This thing between us is real. Messy, yes, but real. I’m going to make mistakes and you’re definitely going to make mistakes”—her mouth opened to protest, but he forged on—“and it might get ugly sometimes, but it’s going to be worth it. Every messy, ugly, amazing minute is going to be worth it because things like this don’t happen every day. People live their whole lives hoping to feel something like this”—he gave her a swift, hard squeeze on that last word—“and most of them never do, Ember.
“I made a mistake in walking away from you like I did. What happened in your past and what happened in mine are two separate things. You’re only responsible for your end of it, not mine. And I know how you’ve punished yourself; I’ve seen it. But no one should be defined by the lowest point in their lives.”
His voice dropped and he murmured, “Please give me a second chance. Please let me show you how much I need you. Please, Ember. Please be mine.”
God how she wanted to cry. But she’d done enough crying and it didn’t help anything anyway, so she just swallowed hard and tried her best to keep her breathing under control. Lashes lowered, she whispered, “I knew the money would go to the cystic fibrosis foundation. That’s the real reason I moved.”
He made a masculine sound low in his throat, grasped both her wrists and brought them up around his shoulders. He took her face in his hands. Looking deep into her eyes he said, “Tell me again, what you said before.”
