“Something beyond being a joystick you like to ride when the mood strikes you.”
“Whatever.” Vash tried to refocus after feeling Elijah’s “joystick” flex inside her when referenced to. “You’re one to talk. I know you’re just into me for my tits.”
“So we’l deal. I’l grant you exclusive and convenient access to what I’ve got in return for the same from you.”
“That’s it?” she asked suspiciously. Exclusivity and convenience tied in a lot of different things, she knew, but she stil had to ask.
His gaze was steady, al human, and infinitely patient. “What more can you live with?”
“Wel …” She ran a hand through her hair. “I can’t live with the cold shoulder. Made me crazy. You were such an ass yesterday.”
“I was the ass?”
She sighed and knew she had to lay it al out there or risk losing him. The beast might be infatuated, but the man wasn’t the type to be strung along. “I want you. Not just for the sex, but for you. I respect you. I respect how you are with your people. But that’s exactly why I can’t keep you. And I’m afraid to want you more. I’m afraid to get hurt again.”
He reached up with both hands and brushed her hair back from her face. “You’re thinking about my responsibilities as an Alpha.”
“Tel me you’re not,” she shot back. “And if you aren’t, you should be.”
“At this point, I’m wondering if there hasn’t been a big f**king mistake. This makes twice now I’ve lost it over you.”
Vash frowned. “When was the other time?”
“Doesn’t matter when. It happened.” His firm, beautiful y shaped mouth brushed across hers. “The hunt began the moment I first saw you. It won’t end until you admit you’re mine or I stop breathing. That’s what the beast wants and what I want it to have. As for the man, I admire your strength and your courage. I’m grateful for your advice and that you’ve always been wil ing to share it with me. I’m addicted to your body, but I also enjoy just being with you. You’re the perfect amount of crazy for me. There’s never a dul moment with you, sweetheart.”
She leaned into him, something inside her cracking open at what he was saying. Her body tightened around him, hugging him from the inside.
He growled softly. “I could come again just like this. Just holding you and being held by you. Even if I go on as the Alpha, I couldn’t pretend to take on a mate now. The thought of being intimate with another woman repulses me.”
Her eyes closed as relief and tenderness flooded her. “There was only Char. Then you. I want this to work. I want to make it work.”
“So commit to this, Vashti—sleeping together, working together, staying together. None of which is anyone else’s business. We just have to talk to each other and make each other a priority.”
“There isn’t a lycan alive who doesn’t want to kil me, including you sometimes.”
“And there are very few vamps who wouldn’t put me down if they thought they could get away with it. Every relationship has its problems and hostile in-laws.”
“Ha! You’re a riot.”
“And I’m stubborn and arrogant.” He nipped her lower lip between even, white teeth. “You’re mine, Vash. I dare anyone to chal enge me otherwise. Even you.”
“You suck.” Her mouth tingled deliciously; the flavor of him spread richly across her tongue. “You knew what you were doing to me yesterday and last night. You knew it would break me down to lose you, that I wouldn’t be able to take it.”
“I hoped,” he corrected. “And kicked myself with doubts about drawing a line I wasn’t sure you’d cross. When I offered my room last night and you didn’t take it, I could’ve strangled you. You tore into a hotel room in a territorial rage, but you wouldn’t take that one step I needed you to take. I started to think there was no way to have you the way I need you. Then you came to me at breakfast and I was too damn close to tel ing you I’d take whatever I could get.”
“I was too damn close to begging you to stop punishing me.” Her vision blurred and she turned her head. “You shut me out. It…hurt. I hate hurting.
It makes me crazy. Crazier.”
He exhaled and leaned into her. “You’re damned stubborn.”
Stung by the truth, she said, “And you’re rol ing over and exposing your bel y without much of a fight, puppy.”
“You’ve been here before, with Charron. Of course you’d be wary of putting yourself out there again and making yourself vulnerable. This is new to me. I’ve never had this, and I want it. I can’t imagine not having it. Not having you.”
Vash pressed her palm over his strongly beating heart. “Has it occurred to you that I might be seducing you and making you care so you won’t be able to kil me?”
He covered her hand with his. “What kind of ass**le do you take me for? Think I could nail you six ways from Sunday, then nail you again with a stake? I let that go before we went at each other in the warehouse. Micah’s dead. What you did to him was wrong, because your assumptions about me were wrong. But I can’t say I would’ve acted differently. If I kil you on his behalf, I’d just be doing exactly what you did to him for Nikki’s sake. It’s a vicious cycle that won’t bring either of them back, but would destroy both of us.”