Wicked (Eternal Guardians #9) - Elisabeth Naughton Page 0,91
At her wild hair, swollen lips, sated eyes, and the freakin’ glow coming off her that told him she’d definitely enjoyed it as much as he had.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, closing his eyes. “I can’t fucking read you at all.”
She laughed and slid her hand lower, to his abs. Just the casual touch lit him up all over again. “And that’s a bad thing?”
“Yes, it’s a bad thing.” His eyes popped open. “I could always read you before. Which is how I always knew what you were going to do next.”
“Which was…?”
“Run.” He gently brushed her hand away, tugged his pants up, and pushed to sitting. A quick look over the room and he spotted his boots—which he didn’t even remember kicking off. “You never wanted to be with me, which is why it’s so fucking insane I can’t get rid of you now.”
“Interesting.” She sat up and wrapped her arms around her updrawn knees while he stood. “Never?”
“Maybe the first time. But then only until you realized I wouldn’t let you leave.” He grabbed his boots and dropped into a high-backed chair so he could pull them on, thankful she was covering those tempting breasts that made him lose his fucking mind. “Every other time you couldn’t wait to get away from me.”
“So we weren’t in love?”
He huffed and loosened the laces on one boot. “Love is an illusion. It’s not real.”
She was silent for several seconds, then shifted to her knees in front of him and slid her palms along his thighs.
He glared down at her, trying not to look at those breasts and the sexy barbells through her delicious nipples. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Distracting you.”
He rolled his eyes and went back to loosening his boot.
And why the hell couldn’t he even be irritated with her now? He needed to pull his head out of his ass, stop obsessing about sex—something he was perfectly fine surviving without—and remember what truly mattered here.
“Did it ever occur to you that this time things are different,” she said softly.
“Yeah, no shit they’re different.” Holy hell, who tied his laces in a knot? “It’s still going to end the same way, though. Which is why you need to get the fuck away from me while you still can.”
A tiny voice in the back of his head told him he should be surprised she was not only discussing the fact they’d been together in her past lives but that she’d accepted it—that she believed it. Only he was too irritated with himself to go there.
She tugged the boot from his hands and dropped it on the floor behind her.
His brows snapped together. “What the—”
“Nice try, Grumpy Prince.” She pushed a hand against his shoulder, forcing him back into the chair, then climbed up and straddled his lap. “I’m not going anywhere. You need me.”
Her words warmed a place inside he wasn’t willing to acknowledge. Sighing, he closed his eyes and fought it as her heat seeped into his legs, his hips, his chest where everything was supposed to stay cold. “I don’t need anyone.”
“Everyone needs somebody.”
“Everyone isn’t me.”
Several seconds passed in silence, and when he couldn’t stand it anymore and finally forced his eyes open, he realized she was smiling down at him. A wide gorgeous smile that lit up her face and made her violet eyes absolutely sparkle.
“Why are you grinning like that?” he asked.
“Because I’m right.”
She leaned down to kiss him but he stopped her with his hands on both of her arms, holding her back. “Don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because they were right. All those people who said I was a monster… Every single one from your world… They were right.”
She stilled and met his gaze, but she didn’t speak, and she didn’t try to kiss him again. And though he told himself that was good—it was the only way it could be—something in his chest cinched down tight all over again.
“Every single awful thing they said I did…” He forced the words out. “They were right. I did those things. No one made me to do them. I did them because I wanted to. I did them because I could. I earned the title the Prince of Darkness. Because that’s exactly what I am.”
Her gaze skipped over his features. Unsure but also filled with… defiance. A defiance that lit him up in a million different ways and made him want her even more. “I don’t care.”
She leaned toward him again, but he tightened his hold on her arms, keeping her