“I can’t be them.”
Not understanding, I ask, “Who?”
“Ry. Jay. Me fucking you isn’t going to make you forget.”
I frown at his crass remark. Ryder and Jayson were the furthest things from my mind when I asked him to come inside. And when I gave him a key to the house, it meant something. I wanted to show him that I was ready. That I wanted him. That I wanted my life and my children’s lives to be filled with him. I’ve seen how they have connected with Fallon, searching him out like they used to do with their dad. My children need him.Ineedhim. And not because I’m trying to fill the void Ryder left, but because I’ve opened my heart to love again.
I put a foot of space between us and cross my arms over my chest, what he said pissing me off. “You think I want you to spend the night because…what? I miss my husband? Because my ex showed up on my doorstep in the middle of the night? Because sex is the cure for a broken heart?”
“You tell me, Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth, not Kitten.
“Your dick isn’t that magical, no matter how many women you’ve screwed.”
That damnable smirk appears, exposing a dimple on his left cheek.Infuriating, sexy jackass.Seeing it just irritates me more.
“Think what you want. I’m not going to stand here and beg the man I’m falling in love with to spend the night with me.”
I wait for him to say something…anything, but he just stares at me.
When he doesn’t utter a sound after a very long minute, I decide to call it a night. I’m not running from our argument. I’ll fight and yell and use whatever metaphorical sledgehammer I need to bust down his stubborn walls. But it’s late, and I’m emotionally and physically exhausted from a long day, and if I can’t have him tonight, then all I want is to take a shower and curl up on my pallet on the couch and fall asleep.
“I’m going to bed. You’re more than welcome to come over for breakfast. If not, I’ll call you in the morning.”
With each step I take toward the house, my heart screams for him to tell me to stop. But he doesn’t.
I refuse to look back when I quietly close the front door and lock it. I lean against the pressed wood and blow out a breath. “Why do the men in my life always have to be so damn stubborn?”
Flicking off the living room light, I climb the stairs to say good night to the kids. I peek in on Christopher first, then Charlotte. They are both dead to the world and fast asleep in their beds.
Deciding to wait up for Marcus to come home so we can talk about what happened between him and Jayson, I go back downstairs and head down the hall to the bedroom, wanting to take a quick shower to wash away the thin sheen of sweat caused by the evening humidity. Removing my necklace and earrings, I set them on the dresser—then startle when strong arms grab me from behind. Fallon’s heart pounds against my back, its rhythm matching the frantic beat of mine.
“Let’s make one thing clear in that beautiful head of yours. I haven’t touched another woman since I saw you at the student center the day Ry found you,” he practically snarls in my ear.
I want to dismiss it as a declaration spoken in the heat of the moment, but I can’t. Becauseholy shit. How is that possible?
He curls a gorgeously inked hand around the front of my neck, his indelicate touch stoking the embers of desire into a flash fire.
“I can’t be gentle. I want you too fucking much.”
This is a new beginning. Our beginning. Mine and Fallon’s.
“I don’t want gentle. I want you to make me burn.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
FALLON
Ruin Me
The waywe come together isn’t pretty. It’s a frenzied collision of desperation and need. Air explodes out of her lungs when I roughly lift her in my arms and kick the bedroom door closed. Our lips fuse together, my tongue fucking her mouth, the taste of her driving me wild, the scent of her intoxicating. I push her up against the back of the door, and her pale-green eyes go black with lust, her perfect lips bee-stung and kiss-swollen. So goddamn breathtaking.
I’ve spent a lifetime obsessed with her, wanting her, loving her, but nothing could have prepared me for what she said.“I’m not going to stand here and beg the man I’m falling in love with to spend the night with me.”
She’s falling in love with me.
A broken angel and a man with a black soul. We shouldn’t make sense, but somehow, we do. I know I don’t deserve her. There shouldn’t be a happily ever after for a man like me. But I don’t fucking care. Elizabeth ismine. I meant what I said. I’ll destroy anyone who tries to take her from me. Including Jay.
