Page 16 of Dark Knight (Knight's Ridge Empire 10)

“I’d have crashed the car if you continued freaking out,” he says, calmly.

My eyes narrow on the scratches on his face as hazy memories of clawing at him around the driver’s seat come back to me.

Pride swells in my chest that I managed that, that I actually managed to cause him even a little bit of pain for what he’d just done.

My lips turn down into a grimace as I stare at him, unable to keep up the act any longer.

“I hate you.” My arm moves before I even register what I’m doing, and pain explodes on my palm as it connects with his cheek again.

His face turns feral, his eyes murderous as his fingers wrap around my wrist, holding my hand where it landed against his face.

All the air rushes from my lungs when I collide with the wall, immediately crushed between it and Daemon’s hard body as he stares down at me, his harsh breaths racing over my face.

“Say it again,” he dares.

“I. Hate. You.”

Before I know what’s happening, his lips are on mine, his tongue is in my mouth and his hand is gripping the back of my neck, holding me in place.

For a good ten seconds, I return his kiss with as much fervour, my mind and body going straight back to Halloween when I lost myself in him so completely, but then everything comes crashing back to me and I slam my palms down on his chest.

“No,” I cry. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to keep dropping in and out of my life pretending you care for a few minutes. No,” I spit, slipping out from between his body and the wall. “You don’t care about me. If you did, you wouldn’t have ignored what happened between us like it was all a dream for months.”

His chest heaves, his lips are swollen, and his fists are curled at his sides.

As always, he’s dressed head to toe in black, only he’s a little more casual with a black t-shirt. Just like on Halloween. Only, he’s missing his cape and mask.

Superhero, my fucking arse.

A manic laugh falls from my lips.

“If you cared, you’d have found me. You’d have said something. Anything. But no, you’ve happily sat in the same room as me and pretended like nothing happened. That you didn’t kiss me, that you didn’t—”

“Make you come?” he finishes for me.

My cheeks burn red hot as the memories slam into me, and my thighs clench to ease the ache with the need to feel it again.

Things have been good with Ant. He’s made me feel good. And I can lie to myself as much as I like, but it was never as good as that night.

I told myself over and over that it was just the mystery. The high of not knowing who I was with in that dark room. The wildness, the rebellion.

But I know none of it was true.

It was him.

My Batman.

“The things you said that night. The way you touched me, I thought…”

“You thought what?” he asks, taking a step toward me. “You thought it was the beginning of something? That I was going to claim you in front of everyone and make you mine?”

I shake my head, wishing that his words weren’t true.

I knew the second he refused to reveal his identity that my hopes for any kind of future between us were a fantasy.

“I can’t have you, Calli,” he says, the sadness and defeat in his tone enough to make a little of my anger ebb away.

“So why am I here? What the hell is all this about if you don’t want me?”

“No,” he barks. “I said I can’t have you, not that I don’t want you.”

I stare at him, trying to process all of this while whatever he drugged me with still fogs the edges of my consciousness.

In the end, I turn my back on all of it, both figuratively and literally and I race toward the bathroom, slamming the door behind me and flicking to lock it before he has a chance to join me.

I manage to keep myself together while I pee, but the second I stand in front of the basin and look in the mirror, seeing the evidence left behind from Ant’s drugging kisses to my neck and the pure fucking exhaustion in my eyes from everything else that’s happened since, I shatter.

Loud, ugly sobs wrack my body, and my legs give out, leaving me in a heap on the floor.