see that you left behind a bulletproof bitch that doesn’t need you to come in and fix her?”
“If you don’t need to be fixed, then why are you so angry?”
She launched herself at him then, one small fist pounding against his chest. “You can’t fix it. The fact you’re even here trying is insulting. Everything I’ve been through. I hate you.” She hit him again, harder this time. “Everything in my life was going fine. At least, it went in a routine. And then you came back. And you’re just here, acting like you could be some kind of benevolent savior, but you never asked if I wanted to be saved.”
She hit him again, just for good measure, he had a feeling. And he grabbed hold of her elbows, holding her steady, not doing anything to keep her from beating on him. She wrenched herself partly away, pounding against him again. “How dare you?” she asked. “How dare you change things, again? I was fine. Everything was going well. You just... You came here for you. It’s for you, because it sure as hell isn’t for me.”
“I wanted to give you the shop and then leave.”
“You could take my pride with you. Forgive me, but it’s in short supply, and I’m not handing bits and pieces of it out at random.”
“Then maybe stop running your mouth at me.” He felt something in his chest, something more than anger. Something that felt raw and wounded. Just plain bad. And he didn’t like it. Didn’t like that growing sense of tenderness that was just plain painful, not to mention misplaced. He tightened his hold on her, looking down into her molten brown eyes. “The way I see it, you either take the handout or you stop fighting me every step of the way. The simple fact is, our lives have collided again. And there’s no sense pretending they didn’t in the past. That we don’t have a connection. Whether you like it or not, we do. Whether you think it’s fair that I was affected by this or not, I was. But you can’t have it both ways. You can have me be absent and eternally punish me. You can’t want nothing from me, but need something that I own. It doesn’t work that way.”
Something in her expression changed, the light in her eyes sharpening, turning feral. “You want to make things right? You want to get back something that was taken from me?”
“I already told you that I’m here to fix things. As best as I can.”
There was only a breath between those words and what happened next, and he didn’t have time to react. She leaned forward, using the hold he had on her to her advantage, pressing her lips against his.
And they ignited.
* * *
REBECCA HAD NO idea what she was doing. In about every way that phrase could be applied, she had no idea what she was doing. She had been kissed before, but it hadn’t felt like this. Maybe it had to do with all of the anger that was coursing through her veins. She could honestly say she’d never kissed a man whom she also wanted to kill.
But, then, added to that fact, she had no idea how she had gone from yelling at him to tasting him. Yet she was. And, the realization that it was completely insane didn’t find her scrambling back to safety.
The first touch of his lips was like a taste of water after years in the desert. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was. And, no matter that it was a terrible idea, the only thing was the thirst. It was all that mattered. Satisfying it, quenching it. A few moments ago, she hadn’t known that it existed. Now, it was the only thing inside her. Bigger—at least in this moment—than her anger. Bigger than her scars. Bigger than who he was.
His grip on her arms was punishing, bruising as he held her steady, letting her continue her wanton attack of his mouth with hers. He was just standing there, as impassive as ever, as if he was merely allowing this kiss, and not participating in it.
That made her even angrier. It shouldn’t. It should be the jolt of sanity that she needed, but she wasn’t feeling particularly sane.
She wrenched her arms free, wrapping them around his neck and leaning forward, her breasts pressing against the hard wall of his chest as she tilted her head, all the better to breach