“Hell yes!" He snapped, facing her across the room, knowing if he got too close, there was no way he could keep from touching her. “I never pretended any different, Raven. You were the one who kept running, who kept • refusing to face facts. You’re the liar, Raven, not me.”
“I never lied to you.” Her hands swiped through her hair, frustration and pain evident on her face. “I told you I couldn’t handle you. I couldn’t handle the kind of relationship you want from me.”
“Fuck that,” he growled. “I don’t want just a damned relationship with you, Raven. I want forever. And you knew it all along.”
Raven stared at him wide-eyed.
“No…”
“Yes, by God, you did,” he bit out. “You'd flit around, teasing and flirting, a little kiss here and there, a pet and a pat and you thought that would be enough to hold me off. Now you’re finding out otherwise and it scares the hell out of you.”
Determination straightened her shoulders and glittered in her eyes. “I want you to leave.” Her voice was rough, ragged with emotion. “Leave and don’t come back, Reno.”
A mocking smile twisted his lips. “Yeah, I guess you do.” He crossed his arms over his chest again, restraining the need to hold her, to promise that everything would be okay. “If I leave,” he continued, “you'll keep hiding your head in the sand, pretending that somehow, someway, if I’m killed in action, then it won’t hurt. You’ll survive it without a bottle in your hand and your heart will remain intact.”
He watched her pale, the color leaching from her face as she stared back at him in shock.
“Do you really think you can do it, Raven?" he asked softly. “Do you think it won’t hurt? Do you think you have your heart packed away nice and tight where nothing or no one can break it?”
“Stop.” Her voice shook, breaking his heart. But her rejection hurt worse. It seared his soul.
He moved toward her then, gripping her shoulders before she could evade him, staring down at her as he fought his own raging emotions.
“Will it work?" He wanted to make her see the truth. “Look at me, Raven. If I die tomorrow, will it hurt any less than it would if we had a year or twenty together? Will you lay me in the ground any easier?”
“Oh God!" She shuddered, her eyes filling with tears as she stared up at him in misery. “I couldn’t stand it. Don’t you see, Reno? I couldn’t stand it if something happened to you.”
Those tears. He couldn’t handle her tears. God, don’t let her cry—it made him want to kill someone. And since he was the one causing the tears, that didn’t leave many options.
“You don’t understand,” she said, dashing away her tears. “What if I’m like my mother? I don’t have the courage to face that.”
“The hell you don’t,” he said, and swooped down, taking her lips, forcing her head back against the wall as he took the kiss, as he needed to take her heart. Fully. Completely. And her response was everything he knew it could be, everything he knew she kept hidden inside her soul.
Her lips opened, her tongue reaching out for his, suckling him inside the warmth of her mouth as she lifted to him, pressing the hard tips of her nipples into his chest as her arms wrapped tight around his neck, her hands gripping his head.
With a ragged growl, he pulled her closer, lifting her into his arms and turning for the staircase. If this was all he would have, then he would take it. But by God, he would show her. If it was the last thing he managed, he would show her exactly what she was throwing away.
Chapter Seven
The expression on his face was like none she had seen before. Powerful, dominant, the hard planes and angles tightened into sharp relief as he moved.
“Reno.” The protest was halted by the simple means of his lips covering hers again as his hands gripped the rounded curves of her buttocks, pulling her up and flush against the thick cock ridged behind the fly of his jeans.
Heat flared instantly, spreading from her pussy through the rest of her body as her hands gripped his shoulders and she arched closer. She couldn’t imagine never knowing this again, never being held by him, loved by him.
Twisting in his grip, she fought him for the kiss, as desperately hungry for him as he seemed to be for her. His hands clenched the flesh of her rear, pulling at the curves until an erotic, sharp little tingle pierced the small entrance of her anus at the separation of the flesh.
“Feel it, Raven. Feel how sweet and hot it is. That doesn’t just go away, baby; it haunts and eats at the soul and makes you so fucking hungry for it, you think you'll go crazy without it. That’s how I’ve been. That’s what tears at me every minute we're apart. Needing this. Your taste, your touch.”
She stared up at him, knowing she couldn’t refute his words. The memory of those brief, heated kisses in the past, his arms surrounding her, had tormented her. She needed him, needed him until it terrified her, but it made her aware of the weakness of her heart and the battle she was losing to hold it aloof.
Then the world spun around her as he lifted her in his arms, ignoring her instinctive protest as he strode across the room and quickly upstairs.
“Reno…you’re taking over again,” she gasped as he stepped into her bedroom, lowering her feet to the floor before pulling her back against him once again.
“I’m not taking you fast enough.” He growled, bending his head as he tilted hers back, catching her lips in a kiss that stole her objections, just as it stole her breath.
He chuckled, the sound rough and strained as she worked her hands between them, moving for the buttons that held his cock prisoner. She wasn’t going to stand there, allowing him to control her, to dominate her so easily. She couldn’t deny the pleasure, but she could make him just as crazy as he was making her.
“No, no. Bad girl.” His hands caught hers as he turned her around quickly, pulling her back against his chest as one hard arm locked around her waist. “Look in the mirror. Look how pretty you are, Raven.”
She blinked at the image in the large mirror that sat atop the chest. Reno’s hand moved along her shoulder, lowering the strap of her dress down her arm until the draped bodice fell away from the swollen curve of her breast.
The red lace of her bra showed up clearly against her pale skin, the picture reflected back at her was one of a forbidden taste of sensual excitement. He stood head and shoulders above her, staring down at her as he stripped the dress from her upper body, his lips moving over her neck and shoulder as the material dropped to the. floor.