Necromancist (Seven Forbidden Arts 6)

“Forgive me?” she exclaimed. “You’re the one who walked out on me, not the other way around.”

“Is that what you think?”

“What else am I supposed to think? You went to the kitchen for a glass of water and never came back.”

“You didn’t bother asking why?”

“How could I? You never spoke to me, again. Instead, you boasted of your conquest to the whole school but avoided me like the plague.”

“Your daddy found me in the kitchen. He threw me out like a piece of shit, in the night, in the cold, in nothing but my fucking underwear.”

Incredulous anger escalated in her. “That’s why you left? That’s why you ignored me? Because my dad threw you out?”

“Yes,” he bit out. “I wasn’t good enough for you or your rich family.”

She nodded slowly. “So you took off with your tail between your legs.”

“Comparing me to a dog, Princess? Reminding me that I’m a pup who belongs with the four-legged litter who raised me?”

“Not to a dog. To a coward.”

“Don’t you dare call me that, again. I let you get away with it once, twice, but I promise you, the next time you call me a coward, you’ll regret it. I’ll make a point of proving you wrong.”

A hysterical giggle bubbled from her throat. “You accepted my dad’s manhandling without putting up a fight.”

He brought his face another inch closer. “And you? You had to know. Did you question your father? Did you ever wonder why I walked out of your life like that? You should’ve known me better, should’ve trusted me enough to know I wouldn’t have done it if there hadn’t been a very good reason.”

She took a shaky breath and straightened in his arms, not caring that her breasts pressed flat against his chest or that his very hard cock was cushioned between her legs. “You’re not doing this.”

His pupils expanded. “What?”

“You’re not blaming the last nine years of my life on a stupid misunderstanding. It’s too easy. This is about much more.”

“Such as?”

“My dad gave you a shove out the door, and you rolled over and played the poor, wounded boy. The truth is I wasn’t enough for you.” She bit her lip to stop it from trembling. “What you’re telling me is that I wasn’t worth fighting for.”

His back went rigid, the act burying his hard-on deeper between her thighs. “Everything I did, I did to fight. I fought for the last nine years of my life.”

It was kind of funny to get closure after so many years. Even funnier was how much she’d suffered, how terribly she’d longed for him. For years, she’d wondered if it had been something she’d said or done. Had she sucked at making love? Had he been disappointed with her first attempt? Had he hated her body? It had never been about her. Ivan dating her had only been about himself.

“I never stopped fighting,” he said in a low voice, some of that very fight going out of him as his shoulders sagged.

“You didn’t do it for me.”

“What are you saying?”

Ivan had always had a complex about his past, about being picked up by social services from his father’s house, a malnourished, flea-ridden, two-year old boy on the brink of dying.

“You did it for yourself, Ivan, to prove to yourself that you’re good enough, not because you loved me.”

“Love is for people with a heart. I don’t have one.”

She had no more strength left. The emotional strain of the past two days and discovering the truth had taken everything. “Just tell me what you want from me so this can end.”

“End?” He gave a cold laugh. “This is only the beginning. I want what’s mine.” His gaze roamed over her face. “You.”

“It’s too late. You killed what we had when you left me alone and humiliated.”

“Humiliated?” His nostrils flared. “Is that what making love to me made you feel like?”

“I was proud to be with you and that you’d been my first until the day you told the whole school you’d fucked me, like I was worth nothing more than a prize panty on your pin-up board.” She grabbed his wrists and tried to move them, but he didn’t budge.

“You’ll hear me out,” he said through clenched teeth. “I told Samuel Owens I fucked you when he made a crude remark about your body. I told him you belonged to me. I also said he’d better keep his eyes and hands off of you, or he’d sorely miss his dick.”

“It doesn’t matter, now. It’s in the past. I’d like to keep it there.”

His smile was frosty. “Well, I’m back, so you better get used to it. And for the record, I don’t break my promises. I will be the last one to fuck you.”

She regarded him with defiance. “Go to hell.”

“Been there, Princess.” Only then did he back up, finally freeing her from the constraint of his arms. “Now, are you going to take my hand and walk me to my choreography session, or do I have to make you?”