Her grip on my tie tightens. “You have to give trust to get it.”
I tilt my head slightly, studying her. “Meaning what?”
“You didn’t want me to hear that conversation with Martina because you didn’t think I could handle it.”
“I just told you. I’m protecting you. Distancing you from this does that.”
“And then who protects you, Shane?”
“I don’t need protection.”
“I disagree.”
“I protect you. You don’t protect me. Do you understand? You don’t get involved.”
“We protect each other,” she argues. “That’s who we are.”
“Not in this, Emily. In this, I protect you. The end.”
“You can’t—”
“I can,” I say, my hand covering hers over my tie, the touch, and that damn sweet floral scent of her, igniting more fire in my blood and making my voice lower, rougher. “I am. End of topic, and I need—”
“No,” she says. “I need—”
“I need,” I say, closing the small space my near departure created between us, my legs framing hers. “And the ways I can end that sentence right now are many. I need Martina out of my company.” I swallow hard. “I fucking need my father to actually live and not die despite what a bastard he is. I need my mother out of Mike’s bed. I need you here with me, but I need you safe. And I really need you to never look at me the way you looked at me right after Martina left tonight.”
“What look, Shane?”
“Fear,” I say. “Of me.”
“No,” she says, instantly rejecting that idea. “No. I’m not afraid of you.”
“Wrong answer.”
“I’m afraid of Martina. I told you that.”
“And me.”
She stares at me, those pale blue eyes of hers sharpening. “Maybe it’s you who’s afraid of you. Maybe on some level you know you got along with Martina just a little too well. Maybe you—”
I tangle my fingers in her hair and tilt her face to mine, my anger now a live charge cracking around us. “You’re wrong.”
“What I am is here, and to be clear, I’m not going anywhere. I’m also not going to hide in a closet and stay silent. I will question you so neither of us loses you. I will ask questions. I will—”
“Stop talking,” I demand, tightening my grip on her hair, adrenaline coursing through me. “You talk too much.” I breathe the last word into her mouth, my lips covering hers, licking into her mouth, tasting her with a hunger that only she can create in me. She is sweet honey on my tongue when everything else sits like a bitter pill I cannot swallow. I can’t get enough of her, and it’s that idea, that realization, that only makes me hungrier, hotter. Gone is any worry that I’m too dark for her. There are just her damning words, over my fear of myself, that I do not like. This isn’t about me. This is about her. She doesn’t trust me. She thinks I’m like everyone else in her life, and that realization is like poison that doesn’t kill, but punishes, the way I want to punish her right now. It torments me. She torments me, and that brings me back to the simple, easy-to-understand feeling of lust. Fierce, intense. Now.
Angry all over again, I reach down, grip the front of her blouse, and yank away the remaining buttons, immediately unknotting the material at her waist. Emily gasps, grabbing my shirt on either side of me, while I shove down the lace of her bra and stroke her nipples, which earns me her panted breaths. I swallow those sweet, sexy sounds, licking into her mouth again, expecting the taste of fear and doubt to overwhelm the arousal, but all I find is sweetness and need, though I know there is more there. More I both want and don’t want to discover.
My fingers tighten where one hand remains threaded in her hair, and I give it an erotic tug, caressing her breast and then teasing her nipple again, and this time not gently. Actually, I’m not sure the first time was either. Nothing about me is gentle tonight, and gentle won’t expose her fear. Gentle won’t force her to admit it, and until she does, we can’t face it and deal with it. And it’s this idea that spurs my freedom to push her, to unleash every dark, brutal emotion biting away at me tonight. I want her to feel it, to taste it. I want her to admit she knows it exists.
But she doesn’t try to resist or hesitate in any way. She arches into me, pressing her hips against the thick ridge of my cock. Giving me her submission, not her anger or her distrust. And on some level I know this should please me, but it does not. It does not. I need more, and I need it now. I release her hair and shove her back against the divider, our gazes colliding. Those sweet full lips of hers are parted, inviting me to kiss them again, my mind conjuring all the places they could be before this night is over. But the swell of my cock doesn’t touch the swell of demand inside me. I want more from her than just her riding my cock. I want more. I want her to show me the emotion that drove that look I saw on her face.
I cup her breasts, thumbing her tight, swollen nipples, my cock so fucking hard it hurts. Her hands go to my arms, her lashes fluttering, lifting. “Shane,” she whispers, her chest rising and falling, and I swear my name on her lips is everything right in my world, when everything else is wrong. I don’t want her to fear me, but if she does, right now, in this moment, I need to know. I need to erase it and make it go the hell away.
Inhaling on a wave of lust, my hands settle at her waist. “Are you afraid of me, Emily?”
“No,” she says firmly. “I am not afraid of you.”
“I want to believe you. I want you to trust me.”
“I do trust you, Shane.”
But there are still shadows in her eyes. I hate those fucking shadows. They tell the story her words do not. They torment me every time I see them, and that knot in my chest tightens and expands, driving me to leave no crack in my armor, or hers, gaping and ready to break. And that thought spurs actions, ideas. I lift her off the divider, sidestepping and settling her weight against the floor-to-ceiling window, my legs shackling hers, protecting her. My hands press hers to the glass on either side of her body, and there is no mistaking her faster breathing or the panic in her eyes. “Now are you afraid?” I challenge.
“Considering I read an article about a couple in Japan who were having sex against a window and then fell to their deaths … Yes. I’m afraid the glass will break. So it’s a good thing I trust you to catch me if it does.”
Her words punch into that knot in my chest. “And if I leave you against the glass and walk away?”
“Then I’m alone and I can fall, but we both know you won’t let that happen.”