Ahh, because he was Superman, He-Man, Ice Man. A freaking Achilles without the heel, and every bit what he’d been made out to be.
His eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness. Moonlight spilled through the open drapes, silhouetting her body. On the other side of the bed.
He loosened his clenched jaw, turned over on his stomach, buried his face in the pillow, and closed his eyes. Restless movement continued on her side of the bed. His side was tomblike.
“Dammit, I don’t want to fight with you!” she exploded.
He took a moment to reply, without a hint of emotion and very little interest, “What is it that you want now,Toni?”
She seemed to debate whether to speak, and when she finally did, it was with a tinge of anger. “Why did you fuck me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like that. You weren’t making love to me, you were . . . you were just fucking.”
“And what was Heath doing?”
She stiffened.Then her voice gained a worn, bitter quality.“But I’m not in love with Heath, now, am I? I don’t remember going around smelling his shirts like some idiot and thinking of ways to make him smile and buying lingerie I pray he’ll like on me.”
Glowering, he turned his head to her, steeling himself against the accusation in her green eyes.
It was impossible for him to just fuck her. It was impossible not to make love to her. Didn’t she know that?
She drew in a long breath when their gazes clashed. “Do you want to stop this, Grey? I don’t think I want to do this any—”
“No,” he snapped. “I have a board of directors who won’t so much as speak until I do, and two thousand employees whose families depend on me. I have never in my life said I’d do something and not done it. I can make money out of air and I can crush my adversaries in a single fist, and with all certainty, I assure you, I can do this!” And he could, goddammit—what was wrong with him?
“Don’t ever fuck me like that again. I mean it.”
He groaned and scraped his hands down his face. “What else did you think we were going to do this weekend but fuck?” he gritted.
“I don’t want just sex from you!”
Grey squeezed his eyes shut, hanging on to his temper by a thread, wanting to shout, And I don’t want just sex from you, either!
“I don’t want to be one of your gazillion . . . threesome . . . conquests.”
One.Two.Three.
“Some meaningless chick you and your partner screwed!”
Four. Five. Six.
“You, putting all your moves on me. You didn’t even call me Toni. I could have been anyone.”
Seven. Eight. Nine.
“Sometimes I swear to god my vibrator has more emotion than you!”
Fuck!
“Grey . . .”
At the end of his rope, he was about to bark “What!” when she added, in a tiny, quivery voice, “Why aren’t you holding me?”
A prickle of unease slithered down his spine, and he snapped his head up. He’d been deaf to the hurt in her voice, but suddenly it was all he was aware of. She was close to tears.
He’d seen her cry once, the time he took her to watch The Pursuit of Happyness.At those first few tiny, delicate sniffles, he’d frozen in his seat. No one had ever cried in front of Grey before. He didn’t inspire tears in people. But when he’d squeezed the delicate hand laced through his on the armrest, she’d flung herself into his arms and those sniffles had become sobs. It was crushing to listen to them, and they’d made his own throat close, too.