It’s a dick thing to say, but too late to call it back. I’m not sure what to call the churning fire gnawing in my veins. Is it leftover fury at my father and his recklessness that carried such a steep price? Or does the heat raging within me have more to do with this innocent woman I’ve now dragged into the center of everything that’s wrong and corrupted in my life?
On a snarl, I decide it’s both.
I toss my charcoal onto the table and reach for the glass of whisky, forgetting I’ve already drained it. Anger spikes as I stare at the empty glass. But it’s not the anger that drags a growl up the back of my throat. What truly sets me off are the faint tremors vibrating through my fingers, making the crystal tremble in my grasp.
Slamming the glass back down, I vault up from the stool.“Goddamn it.”
Melanie flinches. No, it’s something more than that. Shejoltsin response to my churlish outburst, most of the color draining from her cheeks in less than an instant. It’s terror I see in her eyes, instinctive, visceral terror.
I’ve pushed and provoked her ruthlessly every time she’s been in front of me, but this is the only time I’ve seen her composure slip. She shrinks back, staring at me like she’s facing a wild animal.
Hell, maybe she is.
Her fearful gaze shreds me. I turn away from it, and three furious strides carry me out the door of the studio. I head back to the kitchen to retrieve the rest of the Macallan.
Fuck the need for a glass.
I mean to kill the whole damn bottle.
15
JARED
I don’t even hear Melanie following me until I wheel around with the whisky in one hand and find her standing right behind me.
She’s dressed now, albeit hastily. She didn’t bother with her lacy little white bra or the panties that she’d folded neatly on a chair in the studio. Her light cotton dress is wrapped around her like armor, her arms crossed in front of her like a shield.
She’s wary of me, and with good cause. Even so, she holds my glare as she tilts her head up to look me in the eye. “What just happened back there? What’s wrong with you?”
A cold laugh bursts out of me. Christ, I wouldn’t even know where to begin.
Now that I’m squared off against her with only inches to separate us, the trace of palsy in my fingers seems the least of my concerns. I want her. Our agreement prohibits me from touching her, but I’m not thinking about contracts or legalities. I’m not thinking about Hathaway or how satisfying it would be to seduce his woman right out of his arms.
All I’m thinking about is her.
How breathtakingly beautiful she is. How bold and aggravatingly tenacious she is, even when she’s afraid.
I’m thinking about how much I want to pull her into my arms.
And I’m thinking about what an asshole I am for putting those troubled shadows in her eyes.
Her brow creases as she searches my face. “I don’t know what your problem is, other than that bottle in your hand. But for your own sake, I hope you get some help.”
“Get some help?” Instead of laying out all the truths she won’t want to hear, I settle on a sharp chuckle that sounds as brittle as it tastes. “Nothing’s wrong with me that another drink won’t take care of.”
“No,” she says, apparently unaware of how threadbare my control feels right now. “Another drink seems like the last thing you need right now.”
“What I need? What the hell would you know about that?” I sneer down at her, my breath gusting through flared nostrils. My hand tightens around the neck of the whisky bottle, if only to keep from wrapping my fingers around the fiery tendrils of her long hair so I can pull her against me like I want to do.
She swallows, those luminous eyes of hers changing from uncertain, apprehensive blue to a tempest of dusky gray as her pupils darken and enlarge under my stare.
“What’s the matter, Ms. Laurent? Afraid to take a guess? Or are you just afraid to say the words out loud?”
She doesn’t have to speak for me to read what’s going on behind her silence and her disapproving stance. I can see her pulse beating in the pretty hollow at the base of her throat. I can feel the heat of her skin intensifying, practically burning me across the scant distance separating us. Her nipples are tight beneath the soft cotton sundress she’s still clutching together in one small fist over her heart. Her lovely, all too tempting body vibrates with enough awareness to charge the air like the coming of a storm.
She knows damn well what I need, all right. She knows what I want.
She knows, because she wants the same thing.
