She didn’t try to deny it. “Well, there’s a whole lot happening over here besides that. I’ve got quite a bit of angry still going on. Not that you asked. Did you come in here looking to pick a fight? How do you expect me to trust you when you act like such a pig?”
He didn’t like that and glared at her. Struck by the strength and ferocity of the expression, she stared at him. If she were meeting him for the first time and he looked at her like that, she would be spinning on her heel and on the run before you could say Kentucky Derby. How things had changed.
His hold loosened on her. He eased back on his heels. She straightened and inspected the open book that had gotten crushed between them. Some of the pages had gotten creased. She smoothed them out and then set the book on a nearby table. All the while she was focused on him crouching too close in front of her.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Her anger wasn’t so quick to die away just because he knew how to say the word “sorry.” But she didn’t want to start escalating things again, so she just nodded. Maybe waiting up to talk to him had been a mistake. She avoided his gaze as she folded the throw blanket and draped it over the arm of the chair.
“Pia.” She looked at him. He held the jewelry box out to her. “I have a present for you.”
The starch keeping her spine ramrod straight melted. Damn him again. “Do you?”
He opened the box and lifted out the necklace. Gold and rainbow fire glittered in his dark fingers and was reflected in the gleam of his eyes. “I wanted to see how the opals would look against your skin.”
“It’s a beautiful present,” she told him. “Thank you.”
“I’d like to put it on you.”
“All right,” she said.
She pulled her hair into a hand and held it aside as she twisted in the chair. His fingers worked at her nape, securing the clasp. Then the weight of the necklace settled into place around her neck, much heavier than the slim chains she was used to. It was longer than a choker and fell to the top of her breasts. She looked down at it and touched one of the stones.
His fingers stroked the hollow at the base of her neck and trailed along her skin. “Lovely,” he whispered. He bent and angled his head to press a kiss against her throat. She stroked his black hair, her eyes half closed.
He drew back. The lines of strain were bracketing his mouth again. “Do you want to stay or not?”
“I’ll be honest with you,” she told him. “It’s hard to want to stay when you’re being impossible. But I don’t want to go.”
His gaze flared with something, triumph or relief, or maybe both. He started to pull her back into his arms.
“Wait.” She braced both hands on his chest. “I’m not done. I don’t see how we can finish this conversation until something else is concluded.”
“And what is that?” His eyes narrowed.
“I need to know for sure who and what I am. We both need to know. That’s got to come before anything else. You think you want me to stay, but what if you change your mind?” She put fingers over his mouth when he started to speak and said, “It doesn’t matter what you say right now, since this is actually about me. I won’t be able to trust things between us until I believe you know who I am. Hell, until I know who I am. I want you to help me try to change, please.”
He took hold of her hand and removed her fingers from his mouth. “Can I speak now?” he demanded.
He sounded mad again. She wondered if anyone had ever told him before that it didn’t matter what he said or thought. She licked dry lips and said, “Yes.”
“All right. You want to do this, we’ll do it right now.” He stood and pulled her to her feet.
“Now?” She looked at a nearby wall clock. “It’s four thirty in the morning.”
“The hell difference does that make? I’m not going to give you time to overanalyze things and chicken out. You napped, didn’t you?” He took her by the wrist and strode out the door.
“Well, yes.” She trotted to keep up with him. “Damn it, that’s another thing. You’ve got to stop dragging me around like a sack of potatoes.” It was always some kind of he-man issue with him.
He shifted his hold to lace his fingers through hers. “Better?”
“Maybe,” she grumbled.
He led her to the bedroom and into the dressing room. “You’re going to want to put on jeans and some shoes, maybe grab a sweater or jacket. There’s a pocket of Other land about fifteen minutes’ flight west of the city. I’ve used it before for this kind of thing. It’s not very big, but the magic is strong and steady.”
“Okay.” She walked into her closet and stopped. Nerves started to tie her insides up in knots.
Was she going to let him railroad her into doing this now?