“Besides, I’m not afraid of your possible imbalance,” I whisper decisively, even though, deep down, I was very afraid of it. But that wasn’t going to stop me from getting closer to him.
“You should be furious at me right now. Everything I’ve said and done to you…” He inched forward, and the smell of him reminded me how much I loved the musky scent he wore, so fresh and sharp. I could have backed up or even walked away entirely, but I just stood there, waiting for him to touchme. Like there was nothing my body wanted more.
“I should, yes. But I’m not anymore.” I smiled slightly, because now I understood the fears that lurked behind his every word and action. From now on, I would seek to understand him without letting him bring me to heel. Neil was a master of exerting control, and the line between accommodating him and being subjugated by him could get very thin.
“What do you want from me, Selene?” He searched my face for an answer. I didn’t take my eyes off his—so bright, so unique, and so very close to me.
He traced every line of my face as his lips curled into a knowing smile. The smile of a predator sizing up his prey.
As his gaze moved to my lips, staring at them for seconds on end, a jolt of electricity passed from my chest to the bottom of my stomach. My heart turned to paper in an instant, and he could have crumpled it in his fist if that’s what he’d wanted to do.
What were we?
What had we been?
We weren’t awe,but we were something.
There was no category, no label, no definition that could be given to us.
We were what we were. Not everything, perhaps, but certainly notnothing.
I tried to think of a reasonable answer to give him. I needed to be careful because I didn’t want him to realize that Logan had talked to me. I didn’t want him getting mad at his brother for giving me a piece of Neil’s past.
“I asked you a question.” He wet his lower lip, and I quivered at his deep, authoritative voice.
Instead of answering him, I allowed myself to get lost in the flawless little details of his face, forgetting about everything else.
I was enchanted by the flickers of guile that lit up his eyes like fireworks. Neil knew he could make me vulnerable.
He could feel it.
He could also feel my desire for him, so he inched even closer to me, and I took one step back and then another until my back ran into the doorbehind me.
“I just want you to know that I want you. Just as much as you want me.” I tried to sound self-assured, but I was shaking.
Neil struggled to contain a laugh, digging his straight, white teeth into his lower lip and looking at me like I was deranged.
“You have no idea how it would be, being with someone like me. Do you?” He took another step forward, and his powerful scent was dizzying.
“Where would you be if you could be anywhere right now?” he asked me abruptly, breathing right against my face. He rested an elbow on the wall beside my head and adopted a careless stance over me. Then he examined me from top to bottom, going slow, like I was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. I could see the gleam of carnal desire in his eyes.
I barely came up to his chest, and my eyes moved from the outline of his pectoral muscles to his powerful throat. I wanted to put my lips there and taste his skin.
“Anywhere, as long as you’re there too,” I managed, staring up at him from under my eyelashes. Neil smiled smugly and stroked my right hip with his hand.
I gasped.
I wanted him to touch me, but I was afraid to give in to him again. For an endless moment, I looked at his hypnotic face and came to a familiar conclusion: Neil was dangerous.
And yet, I continued to take that risk because, deep down, I was attracted to the danger. I would have allowed his fire to burn every part of me.
“You are sickeningly sweet when you say shit like that.”
He wrinkled his nose in disappointment. “But more importantly…” His hand crept slowly up my rib cage, lingering under the curve of my right breast. He bent his face to my ear, and his warm breath brushed against the arc of my neck. “That’s not the right answer, baby.” He stared into my eyes, and I drowned in his, now heavy with lust.
I tracked the way he licked his full lips, his muscular chest rising rapidly under the sweatshirt that hung from the sculpted edges of his body as he gently rubbed my breast.
My heart was hammering so hard in my chest that I feared he would hearit, and my breath was labored just from that light yet dominating touch. Neil began to stroke my throat with the tip of his nose. Tiny shivers ran down my arms and spine.
