Because I Can (Necklace Trilogy 2)

He sets the journal on the nightstand, as if he too feels its presence a little too much. “Don’t be stupid and I won’t.”

My defenses don’t prickle this time. They blow up in pure white-hot anger. I try to go around him. He catches my arm and drags me to him. “Now you’re running?”

“Stop using that confession about running against me. I don’t like it. And there’s a difference between running and choosing to walk away, Dash.”

His fingers curl on my elbow. “Is that what you’re doing? Walking away?”

Emotions pound at me. “From the moment, not from you, but damn it, Dash.”

“Now who’s cursing at who?”

“You’re frustrating me.”

“The feeling is mutual, cupcake. Real damn mutual.”

My hand is flat on his chest now, but I don’t push him away, not yet. “You said you trust me. You say I don’t trust you. I think you’ve got this backward. Don’t you get how hard it is for me to trust anyone, Dash? And yet, I trust you enough to not even ask questions about last night.”

“No, I don’t know how hard it is for you to trust, Allie. I don’t know anything about your past. You realize that, right?”

“And I know yours? I know what I saw last night, but we both know the answers you gave me were far from everything. And yet, I’m here. And I trust you.”

“I trust you, Allie, or I wouldn’t have invited you to share my home. This isn’t about trust. This is about your safety.”

“Really? Because it feels like you’re trying to control me. And fucking me until January when I go back to New York does not make you the boss of my life.”

I expect him to do just what Brandon did—smash me down, put me in my place, make sure I know who is king and who is the peasant.

Anger blisters his stare. “Is that what we’re doing?” His voice is low, almost brittle. “Fucking until January? Really, Allie? Because if all you want is to be fucked, I don’t have to want you in my home or my bed to do that and do it well. If this is where you want to be, then be here.”

The words stab me right in the heart and then to my shock, he releases me and scrubs his jaw. “Fuck,” he murmurs, and when I think he’ll say more, he turns and heads for the door.

The room sways with the impact of my past and present, and I realize I’ve reacted to Dash as if he were Brandon as if that past was the present. I rush after him and just as he would exit the bedroom, I dart in front of him and press my hands to the hard wall of his chest.

He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t touch me. He just stares at me, and his eyes are now hollow, the way they were last night when I’d found him at that fight event. The only hope he offers me is the fast, heavy beat of his heart beneath my palm, which tells me he is far from as checked out as his actions and words suggest.

Everything inside me screams for me to protect myself, but for the first time in my life, I’m not sure protecting myself means running. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I reacted to you like you were a part of my past, Dash. Not my future. And I’m pretty sure that’s because I’m so damn afraid of you being my past.”

Still, he doesn’t react, at least not immediately. He just keeps staring at me, watching me, seeming to reach inside me and weigh the truth of my words. And just when I think he will reject me, his hand slides under my hair, wraps my neck, and he is dragging me to him. “Protecting you is necessary,” he says. “You need to know that’s a part of me. You need to know that won’t change, Allie, nor will I apologize for it. Not now or ever.”

To some this might seem like a simple play on words that breaks down to him needing, even demanding, control over me and us. But the thing is, I’ve known my share of power-hungry, controlling men. That’s not who Dash is, at least not with me. And nothing, and I mean nothing, with Dash is simple, and most certainly the torment beneath his raspy confession professes this as truth. There are layers to this man, so many layers, and nothing is as it seems on the surface. Dash is a haunted man, tormented by a past that wasn’t any kinder to him than was mine. A past that includes losing people he loved.

I tilt my chin back and find his stare, where that torment lives oh so clearly. He has been hurt and everything he does is a product of that pain. He doesn’t just need to protect me, he needs more in return, perhaps more than I should be willing to give, but that doesn’t stop me from saying, “As long as you know that I’m going to protect you, too, Dash.”