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“Bethany—”
“No.If you don’t want my love, that’s fine.No, actually, it’s not fine.You’ll need to come up with a fucking great reason why you don’t want it, when every time you look at me, I see how much you want me.”
“I do,” he rasped.“I want you more than…” He shook his head.
“And I’m here, right in front of you.You don’t want me to leave, and yet you try to belittle what I have to give you.What the hell do you want from me, Zach?”
He clenched his fist at his sides, repeating the action from when they’d first met.As if he was denying himself of her.His body burned hers, imprinting his heat on her.“Something I don’t have the right to ask.”
“Try it anyway.”
“I want time.A lot of it.And your belief that no matter what happens, I won’t hurt you.Not deliberately.”
“And what about my love?What do you want me to do with that?”she asked.
“Use it to stay.Use it to understand when I can’t reveal my past to you like an open book.”
She trembled at the dark anguish in his voice.More than anything she wanted to step closer, take him in her arms and let the one thing that had always been perfect between them take over.
But she needed more, just a little bit more.
“It’s morning, another day.Time for another question.”
He shut his eyes, and his head fell back wearily.Without opening them, he nodded.
“When you told me you had no family you wanted to talk about, what did you mean?”
His tension escalated, his biceps bunching under the strain of clenching his fists.“My mother lives in Louisiana.I haven’t spoken to her in over ten years.”
“Why?”
“Because that was when I accepted that as much as I wanted to deny it, she would never be who I want her to be,” he muttered hoarsely, pain vibrating off his body, hitting her in the gut with the sheer magnitude of it.
“I’m sorry, Zach.”
He opened his eyes and the hard, ruthless gleam she saw amid the pain made her breath catch.“Don’t be.I knew she was toxic long before I cut her out of my life.”
“God, what did she do to you?”
“To me?Nothing.It was what she did to herself.What she let others do to her that was the problem.”
“What does that?—?”
He stopped her words with one finger across her lips.“No, I’ve answered your question.Which means the inquisition is over for another twenty-four hours.It also means I have you for another day.”His finger slid slowly over her mouth, and she noticed it was trembling.“I need you, Bethany.”The naked plea in his voice, in his eyes, made tears clog her throat.
“You have me,” she answered simply, hoping that the love vibrating from inside her would heal him even a little.
His breath shuddered out.He lifted her chin with his finger and looked into her eyes.“If I take you tonight, it won’t be… I can’t promise I won’t be a little rough.Are you okay with that?”
Excitement bubbled through the volatile emotions ricocheting in the atmosphere.“I know you won’t hurt me.”
One arm slid around her, pulling her in to his hard body.“I’ll never hurt you, Peaches.Not intentionally.”
She nodded, and her gaze flicked to the structure behind him.“But right now you want to tie me to a cross.Am I right?”she asked, her voice husky with deep arousal.
His smile was lopsided, tinged with chagrin.“I’d never given much thought to control or how it would feel to lose mine, until I met you.Now you touch me and I feel as if I’m losing my mind.”
“I feel the same way.”