all you want.”
When I look at Dylan again, he rolls his eyes and turns to leave, closing the door behind him as best he can with the busted frame.
I spin back to face Emily, the tension between us oddly broken after her brother’s misplaced act of heroism.
Instead of staring at me, she’s looking at the door, surprise obvious in her expression.
Her voice is soft when she speaks next, almost as if she’s not talking to me but to herself.
“Dylan just tried to help me.”
Looking between her and the closed door, I cock a brow.
“Yeah, he did.”
Her gaze lifts to mine.
“He has been so horrible to me for the past few months. I don’t understand.”
Damn it. The fight is bleeding out of me to see her in so much shock.
“Has he been treating you bad these past few weeks?”
A shake of her head.
“No. He’s -“
Her voice trails off, her eyes locking to mine again, the fire behind them only embers now.
“This changes nothing, Ezra. You still need to leave.”
“Hate to break this to you, but I’m staying right here until you agree to be with me, only me, and you’re done fighting me on it.”
Emily blinks her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest. With a rebellious tilt of her chin, she pins me with her stare.
“I refuse to step onto the battlefield with you...”
Whatever the fuck that means, I think.
“I won’t fight about this anymore.”
My lips curl at the corners. “Well, that’s too damn bad because I’m fighting for both of us.”
“Why?”
The flames erupt again, her eyes like liquid, her cheeks shaded pink.
Good.
I like her better this way.
Leaning into her, I trap her chin between my fingers, my thumb brushing over her mouth as a tease.
Her eyes narrow at the touch, a muscle jumping above one.
“Tell me you don’t love me, and I’ll walk away.”
She tries to pull from my grasp, but I clamp my fingers down harder.
“I didn’t say you can move away, killer. If you want me to let go, then do what I said. Otherwise, you need to get it through your thick head that I’m here, and I’m never leaving.”
Emily stares at me for several seconds, a hundred different arguments flying behind those eyes, but not one of them is that she doesn’t love me.
I have no doubt in my mind about that.
When she doesn’t answer, I move closer, my mouth brushing hers.
“That’s what I thought.”
Still, her stubborn ass fights me.
“It doesn’t matter that I love you, Ezra. There is too much standing between us.”
Emily can think that all she wants.
It’s my job to show her she’s wrong.
Emily
I don’t like the look on his face. Instead of listening to reason, Ezra is taking my every word as a challenge. His eyes have that lazy, molten thing going, his cruel mouth curling in a way that drives pure heat through my body and weakens my knees.
He’s weaving again, a slow movement like a damn cobra entrancing me before he strikes so quickly that I have no warning to move away.
His breath is hot against my cheek, the tip of his nose running the line of my jaw. I shiver at the feeling.
Ezra reduces me to cornered prey when he gets like this, my body submitting easily to the threat of violence, to the raw, masculine energy that rolls off him in waves.
This man is standing squarely in the center of the battlefield, his eyes locked on me, that damn arrogant smirk of his stretching slowly into place. I can circle him as much as I want, but there is no possible way he’ll let me walk off.
It’s either fight...or surrender.
“My loving you,” I say, my voice stern and rising as I talk, “is only one factor in this equation. But love does nothing to excuse the way you’ve treated me recently. It does nothing to excuse the fight you had with Damon right in front of me.”
His gaze drops to my mouth, desire skimming across his stare.
“I’ll handle Damon. And I already apologized for the way I treated you.”
My teeth clench at that.
“One apology means absolutely nothing.”
When his eyes flick back up, my heart thuds against my chest.
“If I have to apologize every fucking day for the rest of my life just to have you, then that’s what I’ll do. But I’m not letting you go, Emily. It’s that simple.”
Jerking my chin away, I take a step back, but the bastard just moves forward again, impatience and frustration rolling across his expression as he kicks my