He spins around, eyes landing heavy on mine. He clenches his jaw.“You're mine.Mywife.”
I shove away from the table, too.I rush over to him. “How can you even say that to me?I'm not your wife if you're here and I'm there. If you won’t come anywhere near me.”
“And what am I supposed to do, Brynne?”he says.“Come home?Be half-wolf with you in the city?”
“No, we can stay here.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.
You would have thought I suggested that we both move to Pluto, the way his brow furrows. “We can't live here.”
“Why not?”
“Brynne, even if you could give up the city, which we both know you couldn’t, I can’t…”He shakes his head again, like he’s talking himself out of something. “I can't do that to you.You can't...live this fucked up life with me. I don't even know what I am.”
“I don't care.”I take another tentative step toward him. And this time, he doesn't back away.“I don't care what you are.What you are is my husband. What you are is…” I trail off.What you are is the man I love.That's what I want to tell him.That there was never any chance that I was ever going to stop loving him.But I can't go on like this. And he knows it.
He's breathing heavy, his eyes on my mouth like he can see the words, the ones I won't say. “So you want to live in a cabin in the mountains with a monster?”
I take one more step toward him, so close that I have to crane my neck to look up at him.“I want to live with you. I want to be wherever you are.”I still can't say the fucking words, even though I’m starting to feel that they might be the one thing that could convince him I mean it.
He gives his head one more sharp shake. “I can't put you in danger.”
I take the last step so that I'm pressed against him. “I can't live without you, Emmett.Either have me now or let me go.”
Chapter 6
The storm rageson and on and on. It feels like it'll never end, the wind howling through the cracks in the door, the windows.
Emmett sits on one side of the couch, and I sit on the other.He's pretending to read a book, but it's been a very long time since he turned the page.His eyes have stopped moving in any discernible way.
I've been trying to get service on my phone for the last hour.I really need to check my emails.Although, I think about what Emmett said, and it almost gets me to stop.
Could I move out here to the middle of nowhere with him?Could I give up my job in the city? Come stay?I always wanted a quiet life.We talked about it when we first got married.Something just like this. A cabin in the middle of nowhere, just the two of us.
But then, life happened.I got offered a job that was just way too much money to say no to. So we moved to the city.I worked, and he worked, and life just got louder and more chaotic every day.But we were together, so it was an easy sacrifice. At least, I thought so.
I glance up at him again.His golden skin, and the way that the firelight flickers across it. Yes, I think I could give upeverything if it meant being here with him.Because what good is going back to the city and having a six-figure job and a perfect apartment and all of that shit if I don't have him?Knowing everything that I do now, can I walk away again?Can I just let him sign those papers and move on?
And then what?Meet someone else while still thinking about him every day, while longing for him?
I put my phone down.“Emmett.”
His eyes flicker to mine.“Yeah?” he says.
I’m pretty sure it's the first word that he's uttered since our conversation in the kitchen nook at breakfast. The day's almost over and we've been orbiting each other carefully, dancing around the situation without actually coming to any kind of solution.
“Do you remember that night the power went out?”
He blinks at me.I think he wasn't quite expecting that. Maybe I wasn't either, but it just popped into my head.
It was the middle of summer.The power went out, and with nothing else to do, we went to bed and fucked for hours, until we had to take a cold shower because we were both so filthy.
“Do you remember it?” I ask again.
He nods. “How could I possibly forget?Do you remember putting on your heels?”
I snort and feel a ridiculous blush crawl up my cheeks.“Yes, I remember.”
His eyes are glowing. A part of it is the firelight,but I think part of it is something else. That beastly side of him.And then his smile starts to fall away, and I can't stand to watch it go.
