“What’s your real name?” I ask thickly.
“You already know my name,” he says, his voice low and gruff as a spark of tenderness steals into his eyes. “You’ve moaned it. Screamed it. Whispered it. It’s Greyson, Melanie.” He starts for me as though he suddenly needs to make some sort of contact, but I can’t bear it if he touches me. I back away, shaking my head from side to side.
“So you’re one of their leaders. Leader of these mafia Underground men,” I say.
His eyes burn with some unspeakable emotion. “If that’s what you want to call me, yes.”
“My necklace. You didn’t even buy it. Did you?” I can hardly speak, my voice is so pained and raw.
“Some payments are made in substance. And we keep them on hand for bribes—so yes, princess, I didn’t buy your bauble exactly.”
“Wow. My friends were right, it meant nothing to you.”
“Which friend? The one you were kissing last night? Where is that necklace, Melanie?” He stalks toward me faster and I back away until my spine is flat against the wall and he presses into me, a big predator with eyes that somehow own me as they look down at me.
He curls a hand around my neck, and his hunger reaches me, weakens me. I feel my knees wobble at his nearness. His scent. God, I missed him and I hate that I did. That I do.
He’s standing here and I still do.
Miss him.
Want him.
“You kill people,” I rasp.
His hand circles my throat, and the pad of his thumb slowly, sinuously, begins caressing my pulse point as his eyes drop to my lips. “Sometimes.” His voice is a low rasp.
“Do you torture them?”
I’m breathless.
I’m breathless and hurting and why can’t I unlove him? Why can’t I unlove him?
“I do what I have to,” he murmurs as he strokes my neck with his thumb and keeps staring, keeps hungering openly for my mouth, his gaze so powerful I lick my lips nervously, and it only makes his eyes darken even more. He hungers even more.
My breath is no longer mine. But I keep trying to get air into my lungs, because all the emotions in my chest are too painful to hold back. “Stupid little bimbo, is that why you chose me?” I ask thickly.
“Chose you? If I’d chosen a woman, I would never have chosen you.” He rubs the back of one knuckle over my lips as he keeps fucking my lips with his eyes. “You’re a hot mess, Melanie,” he rasps. “You’re a hot, innocent little mess and I would never willingly tie myself by the balls to someone as fun, merry, innocent, and happy-go-lucky as you. I didn’t choose you, but I sure as fuck can’t free myself of you. You’re in my head, you’re like some demon in my fucking heart.”
“Fuck you!” I push him, but he grabs my wrists to halt me and pulls my arms over my head, causing my body to arch instinctively and the tips of my nipples to brush against his hard chest. The instant bolt of arousal I feel sparks my own anger at myself.
“Use me,” I yell, squirming in his hold, “discard me. That was the plan, right? Fuck her and then fuck her over. Get some blonde who doesn’t think too much and won’t ask a lot of questions! One you can get rid of easily!”
“Do I look like someone who’s trying to get rid of you?” he grinds out, tightening his hold on my wrists, pressing his erection against me. “I want you like I want a new life, Melanie,” he grits out. “I have files thick about you and men, I know about your debt. I knew about your twin before you even told me, Melanie.”
I choke when he mentions Lauren. My eyes blur as he softly continues, easing his hold on my wrists and slowly, caressingly, dragging the cup of his hand down the delicate inside skin of my bare arms. “I know your parents lost her, and you blame yourself because you lived. Don’t you?”
I think there’s not only a fireball in my throat, but it’s in my eyes and in my heart.
“So all your sweet life you’ve tried to make up for what you feel you took from your parents. You’ve tried to make them happy, you’ve tried to make everyone around you happy, because maybe, deep down, you don’t want anyone to believe you didn’t deserve the chance your sister never got.”
“Stop it,” I say quietly, but a stream of tears pours down my face because nobody has ever seen so clearly into me before, and I’m scared, and hurting, and his hazel eyes just won’t let me go.
He tightens his hold on my shoulders now, his gaze fiercely tender and still hungry for me as he adds, “I know you’ve used sex to stop feeling lonely too long, Melanie, and I know you’re the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen, always trying to make the best of everything. Giving every frog a chance, because you were given that chance, right? So why would you deny a chance to someone? Anyone? Even a fucking asshole like me?”
He slides a hand down my face and caresses my cheek, the kind of caress only he gives me. The one I feel under my skin, down to my nerves, my bones.
“I know that you quit a semester in college to stand by your best friend when she was injured,” he adds, “and you never told her you postponed the semester because you wanted to keep her company. I know you’re the sort of girl who’d buy a Mustang in a city where it rains almost every day of the year because it’s worth it to ride with the top down for the days where there’s sun. I know you, Melanie. Fuck, I know more about you than I wish I knew because I would not change one thing . . . one thing . . . one word . . . of the ten-inch file I have of you . . . on my fucking desk.”