"Has it occurred to you I miss my house, my things, my - "
"I'll have them moved here. Everything."
She shook her head. "I need to go home."
"It's not safe."
"Then we're going to have to make it safe. I'll install an alarm, learn to shoot, I don't know. But I have to get back to my life."
He closed his eyes.
"Rhage, look at me. Look at me." She squeezed his hand. "I have things I need to do. In my world."
His lips tightened into a slash. "Will you let me have Vishous install a security system?"
"Yes."
"And you will come stay here with me some days."
She took a deep breath. "What if I say no?"
"Then I'll come to you."
"I don't think - "
"I've told you before. Stop thinking."
His lips found hers, but before his tongue slipped inside and stole her ability to be logical, she pushed him back.
"Rhage, you know this isn't going anywhere. This... whatever it is between us. It's not. It can't."
He rolled over onto his back, putting an arm behind his head. As his jaw clenched, the cords of his neck stood out.
She hated this; she really did. But it was better to get it all out. "I appreciate everything you've done for me. The sacrifice to keep me safe - "
"Why did you get so upset the night I went out?"
"Excuse me?"
"Why did you care that I'd been with someone else? Or did you just feel like a little rough sex and needed to hide behind a reason for it?" His eyes shifted to hers. The blue was neon sharp, nearly too bright to look into. "Listen, the next time you want some hard grind, all you've got to do is ask. I can play it like that."
Oh, God. This anger was not what she'd wanted. "Rhage - "
"You know, I really got into it. I liked that domination shit you threw out. Liked the sadistic part, too. Tasting my blood on your lips after you bit my mouth? Huge turn-on."
The cold tone of voice was awful. His flat, glowing eyes were worse.
"I'm sorry," she said. "But - "
"In fact, I'm getting hard right now, just thinking about it. Kind of surprising, considering how I spent the last twenty minutes."
"What exactly do you think the future holds for us?"
"We'll never know, will we. But you'll stick around until nightfall, right? If only because you need me to take you home. So let me see if I can get myself tuned up again. I'd hate to waste your time." He reached under the covers. "Damn, you're good. I'm hard as a baseball bat."
"Do you know what the next six months are going to be like for me?"
"No, and I'm not going to know, am I? So how about some sex. Since that's all you want from me, and because I'm enough of a pathetic loser to take you any way I can get you, I guess I'd better hop to it."
"Rhage!" she shouted, trying to get his attention.
"Mary!" he mocked. "I'm sorry, am I talking too much? You'd rather have my mouth doing something else, right? You want it on yours? No, your breasts. Wait, lower. Yeah, you like it lower, don't you. And I know just how to do you right."
She put her head in her hands. "I don't want to leave you like this. Fighting."
"But that's not going to slow you down, is it? Not you, not superstrong Mary. No, you're just going to go out into the world - "
"To be sick, Rhage! I'm leaving you to go be sick, okay? I'm going to the doctor's tomorrow. There isn't some huge party waiting for me when I get home."
He stared at her. "Do you think I am so unworthy that I cannot attend to you?"
"What?"
"Will you not let me attend to you in your illness?"
She thought about how hard it had been for her to see him in pain and not be able to make the hurt go away.
"Why would you want do that?" she whispered.
Rhage's mouth went lax, as if she'd struck him.
He shot out of bed. "Yeah, fuck you, Mary."
He jabbed his legs into a pair of leather pants and snapped a shirt from the dresser.
"Get yourself packed, sweetheart. You won't have to put up with a stray dog anymore." He pushed his arms through the shirt's sleeves and pulled it over his head. "I'll get V to hardwire your house ASAP. It shouldn't take