"Get out of my apartment! NOW!"
Trembling with the need to hold himself in check, he pushed past her and grabbed his coat off the hook by the door. Jabbing his arms into the sleeves, he turned. His own anger made it impossible for him to read her expression. "Just one more thing, Vicki. I am not your fucking father."
The door closed behind him with enough force to shake the building.
A heartbeat later it opened again.
"And don't forget to call your mother!"
The coffee mug exploded into a thousand pieces against the wood.
"And did you?"
"Did I what?" Vicki snapped. Giving Henry the gist of the fight had put her in nearly as bad a mood as the fight had. It didn't help that she knew she should've kept her mouth shut but when Henry had asked what was bothering her, she couldn't seem to stop a repeat of the whole infuriating conversation from pouring out.
"Did you call your mother?"
"No. I didn't." She turned to face the window, jabbed at her glasses, and glared out at the darkness. "I wasn't exactly in the mood to talk to my mother. I went down to Missing Persons and nailed Mr. Simmons/O'Conner to the wall instead."
"Did that make you feel better?"
"No. Although it might have if they'd let me use real nails."
A facetious comment spoken with complete and utter sincerity. Even from across the room Henry could feel pulsing waves of anger radiating off of her. He wished now that he hadn't asked, that he'd ignored her mood and never been subjected to Detective-Sergeant Michael Celluci's all-too-accurate analysis of Vicki's inability to commit. But now that he'd heard it, he couldn't let it rest. Vicki would continue to think about what Celluci had said, had obviously been thinking of little else since Celluci had slammed out of her apartment, and, now that her nose had been rubbed in it, would in time see it for the truth. At which point she would have to choose.
He wouldn't lose her. If that meant taking the day as well as the night, his love gave him a right equal to Celluci's to assert a claim.
You raised the stakes, mortal, he told the other man silently. Remember that.
He stood and crossed the carpet to stand at her side, glorying for a moment in her heartbeat, savoring her heat, her scent, her life.
"He was right," he said at last.
"About what?" The words were forced out through clenched teeth. No need to ask which he was meant.
"We can't, any of us, go on the way we have."
"Why not?" The final consonant carried the weight of a potential explosion.
"Because, like Mike Celluci, I want to be the most important person in your life."
She snorted. "And what about what I want?"
He could see the muscles working beneath the velvet surface of her skin, tensing around her eyes and the corners of her mouth and so he chose his next words with care. "I think that's what we're trying to discover."
"And what if I decide I want him?"
Her tone held a bitter, mocking edge. Henry couldn't help but respond.
"Could you give me up?"
The power in his voice pulled her around to face him. He heard her swallow hard as she met his gaze, heard her heartbeat quicken, saw her pupils dilate, tasted the change in her scent on the air. Then he released her.
Vicki jerked back, furious at Henry, furious at herself. "Don't ever do that again!" she panted, fighting to get enough air into her lungs. "I give nobody power over my life. Not you. Not him. Nobody!" Barely in control of her movements, she whirled and stomped across the living room. "I am out of here." She snatched her coat and bag up off the end of the couch, "And you can just play Prince of fucking Darkness with somebody else."
He hadn't moved from the window. He knew he could call her back, so he had no need to make the attempt. "Where are you going?"
"I'm going for a long walk in the sleaziest neighborhood I can find in the hope that some dickweed will try something stupid and I can break his fucking arms! Don't follow me!"