“No. I told her I wouldn’t get in her way today.”
Fuck.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I said, exiting the room to make a call. As I stepped out into the corridor, Lily pushed through the door from the intensive care unit, her eyes coming straight to mine.
Stopping dead in her tracks, she said, “King.”
I’d caught her off guard, which wasn’t my intention, but it seemed to slow down any inclination she may have had to tell me to leave the minute she saw me. Either that or she’d decided to stop fighting me. The way she looked at me was a hell of a lot different to the way she’d looked at me last night. She appeared to have thawed a little.
I ran my eyes over her. It wasn’t because I wanted to fuck her, although that desire was stronger than ever. This was based on my need to know she was okay. It was a habit I’d picked up somewhere along the way in life. When I spent time away from those I cared about, I found it necessary to check for any harm that may have come to them while I was absent. It was a habit I couldn’t shake.
Lily was okay. Physically, at least.
“What are you doing here?” she asked as I checked her over.
Meeting her gaze again, I said, “I dropped Skylar off.”
Her brain appeared to catch up to my presence when the thawing of her ice shifted back to freezing temperatures again. “Thank you for dropping her off. You can go now.”
Her words were automated. Cold. Emotionless. Like she was talking from a fucking script. It was as if she didn’t even fucking know me; like I’d never been inside her. That shit pissed me off. Where the hell had her fire gone? I could handle her hate and her disappointment and her regret. Whatever she wanted to throw at me, I could fucking take. But I could never handle being frozen out like this because I knew it came from the kind of devastation that crushed a soul. And I never fucking wanted to crush her soul.
I closed the distance between us, slid my hand around her waist and backed her up against the wall. Ignoring the widening of her eyes and the way her hands pressed against my chest, I growled, “We need to get one thing straight, and one thing only. I’m not walking away from this.”
Her throat worked hard as she found her words. With her hands still pushing against me, she blurted out, “I don’t know what you think this is, but as far as I’m concerned, there isn’t anything for you to walk away from.”
I moved my free hand to her neck, gripping her there and circling my thumb over her throat. Bending my face to hers, I said, “That’s bullshit and you know it. Stay mad at me. Stay fucked off. Yell at me, scream at me, fucking hit me, but don’t you fucking shut down on me.”
She sucked in a sharp breath. And then she found her fighting spirit. “This isn’t something you can fix, King. You can’t just swoop in and demand I forget what you did. I needed you and you just left.” She pushed hard against my chest, forcing me backwards. “You hurt me, and I won’t allow you to do that again.”
There she was.
Fucking beautiful.
“Good,” I said, my entire body blazing with heat. I could work with what she’d given me.
“Good? What the hell does that mean?”
Fuck, if only she knew how much her fight turned me on. “You’re not done either, Lily. I don’t expect you to forget what I did, but you’ll move past it. This pull between us is too fucking strong for you not to.”
“My God, you’re arrogant.”
“No, I’m honest.”
“You’re fucking presumptuous is what you are.”
“We can stand here all fucking day slinging words at each other, but that would only prove I’m right.” I moved into her personal space again, unable to stop myself. Fuck, I wanted this woman. Tracing my finger over her lips, I added, “If you didn’t still want me, you would have ended this conversation before it even got started.”
Her lips flattened and she pushed me away again. Moving past me, she snapped, “You tell yourself that, but don’t ever presume to know my thoughts again. You are so wrong it isn’t funny.”
I watched her walk into the waiting room and sit with Skylar. Not once in our conversation had she brought up her ex. If she were committed to trying again with him, she would have thrown that at me. Not that I’d let him get in my way when it was clear she wanted me, but she hadn’t mentioned his name once, signalling that was bullshit, too.
Eric Bones eyed me with hesitation. “You’re stirring some shit up, King. You sure you wanna do that?”
I leaned back into the booth where we sat in the darkened corner of the dingy pub I reserved for these kinds of meetings. Crossing my arms over my chest, I said, “I haven’t been so fucking sure of something for a long time.”
“Fucking hell,” he muttered. “It’s throwing a lot of heat my way.”
“And?” Did he think I gave two shits?