I felt myself retreating again, my walls building up around me, trying desperately to shut him away. Because if I let him in again, he would destroy me from the inside out.
I had to think about my child now. A rocky friendship with the father was better than hatred. I wanted to have a good relationship with him for the sake of our child, and especially since we would be in one another’s livesforever…but I couldn’t allow myself to fall in love with him.
Not again, not ever. I wouldn’t survive it this time.
Kaldur stood, gracefully guiding himself over the bench. “Let me take you back to your room.”
“No,” I said quickly, not meeting his eyes. “I’d like to stay a little longer.”
Kaldur lingered, looking like he was on the verge of saying something. Only the words never came.
“Good night, Erina.”
He went to the door but paused at the threshold. I watched when his forehead pressed into the carved wood, and I heard him take in a deep breath.
Then he spun, striding back toward me.
“What you overheard that night in my study, with Lydrasa…that was a lie. Perhaps one of the worst I’ve ever told.”
My heart skipped. I stared up at him. He splayed his hands on the table, leaning toward me so that I had no choice but to meet his gaze. It was nearly a glare, but I knew that anger wasn’t directed at me.
“What a fucking laughable word for what we had that night.Fine,” he growled, no humor in his voice. “Fine. That word will haunt me, and it should.”
“Kaldur—”
“The truth is that I fuckingburnedfor you,” he told me, his voice quiet and low and deathly serious. Every word in that sentence was clipped, as if he wanted me to understand each and every one. To make his meaning clear. “I have never desired someone as much I desired you that night, Erina. And I hated it. Ihatedthat you could have that much control over me.”
My heart was beating so fast in my chest that it felt like a caged animal.
“So no, it was notfine, Erina,” he continued. “It was soul crushing because at that time, I thought you were just using me, that you loved someone else. I gave into you because I had never wanted you more. It wasfuckingsexy—the way you opened up for me, the way you felt around me. All your sounds and moans…I wanted to bottle them up all for me. That night will always be burned in my memory because of it.Raazos’s blood, I get hard just thinking about it,” he growled.
I nearly gasped, his words feeling like they were drowning me, pulling me deeper and deeper.
“So you need to know that because I can see it in your eyes. Right now. You believe that I don’t desire you, and you couldn’t be more wrong about that. You are theonlywoman I desire now. Just as I know these are just more words to you. But in time, you’ll see how serious I am about this.”
“You…you really haven’t been with anyone else?” I whispered. He’d told me he hadn’t fed from anyone else, but I’d just assumed…
“No,” he rasped. “My body has been fuckingdeadsince you left. I don’t want anyone else.”
How many times had I dreamed of Kaldur saying this to me? Only in my wildest of imaginings.
Of course, in my mind they’d been a soft confession, a romantic one, and not quite so harsh, rough.
But I thought that this feltreal. Raw and vulnerable. I realized…I wouldn’t want it any other way.
“I wish I could open up my mind to you, so that you would know I was telling the truth,” he confessed. “So that you would know I’m not a lying bastard, just trying to get you into my bed again.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I felt a strange sensation in my belly, a fluttering. Like my body was waking to him.
“Which, just to be clear, I fully intend to do,” he admitted. I nearly laughed, but I didn’t think I could utter a single sound right then. “I might not be a lying bastard, but I am a selfish one. So fair warning, Erina…I do intend for you to be in my bed—ourbed—again, and then I’ll do everything in my power to keep you there for good. Do you understand?”
His expression was thunderous, the intensity in his eyes magnetic. He was waiting for my answer, and I tried to make my tongue remember how to form words.
“Yes,” I finally whispered, “I understand.”
He exhaled a long slow breath, finally standing to his full height, not looming over the end of the table. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t affected by his words, by his promise.
I wondered if it was possible to give into someone sexually while keeping one’s heart safe.
