“How dare you walk away from me?” Her voice was quivering with indignation.
There was no doubt that Zara’s feathers were thoroughly ruffled. Though he had a feeling there was nothing he could do at this point to unruffle them. In truth, she had been rather ruffled from the first moment he saw her. It was the effect he seemed to have on her.
That didn’t bother him. What disturbed him was the effect she seemed to have on him.
“Did you want me to stay and initiate another round? We were standing in the hallway. Anyone could have walked by,” he said, throwing the same accusations at her that he had just thrown at himself.
“That didn’t bother you before.”
No, it didn’t. Because he hadn’t been thinking. He hadn’t been in control.
He ground his teeth together, his heart thundering hard. He was...angry. At his body, for betraying him as it always did. At himself, for his weakness.
At her, for making him vulnerable.
Before he knew what he was doing, he growled, crossing the room toward her. Her eyes widened, and she shrank back from him, her back hitting the wall.
“You think the wall will save you? I think we’ve proven that it won’t,” he said, rage making him reckless. Making him cruel.
He wanted to use his words to drive a wedge between them. To push her away. He didn’t want her to look at him with desire.
“You are not touching me again until you explain yourself.”
“What’s to explain? I wanted you. I had you.” With no control, no finesse, no care for anything at all. He hadn’t even asked her if she wanted it. Yes, her body language had given every indication that she did, but he hadn’t even known how innocent Zara was. He still wasn’t entirely certain. She had acted boldly back there, but that meant nothing. He was afraid to ask. Now that it was too late, he was very afraid indeed.
“And then you left.”
“Again, Princess, what did you want from me?”
“I thought we might go back in for dessert,” she said, her voice wobbling.
That innocence, the insecurity, tore at him like claws and yet he could not stop himself from putting more distance between them.
He laughed, the sound carrying no humor. “So you thought I would go back in there with no buttons on my shirt? After all, a little creature pulled them off.”
She is not the creature. You are the monster.
Her expression turned all the more stormy. “I am not a creature. I am a woman. As I think I just proved.” She was as haughty as ever. As prideful. Her chin tilted upward, her eyes full of determination.
But she was also vulnerable. He could see it there, written on her face plainly. And there was nothing he could do about it. He was not the man to handle vulnerable women.
If his history was any indicator, he was the man who chased vulnerable women away.
“And I am a man,” he said, keeping his tone dry. “So there is nothing all that exceptional about attraction exploding between us.”
She frowned. “Even though we were fighting?”
“Especially because we were fighting,” he said, his voice rough.
“That makes no sense to me.”
“Then I question the sort of lovers you’ve had in the past.”
It was her turn to laugh. “I’ve had no other lovers.”
It was the answer he had been afraid of. The rage in his blood turned to ice, settling in the pit of his stomach. “Is that so?”
“Of course I haven’t. I had never even kissed a man before you.”
Mother of God. Had she even known what was exploding between them out there in the hall? Had she even realized where it might go? What had he done?
In that moment he despised himself. He hadn’t thought it was possible for him to reach a new depth of hating his own lack of self-control. The loss of his mother, what happened with Francesca, he had imagined that was the worst of it. Right now, looking at this angry, confused woman who had been a virgin only minutes earlier, he realized there were entirely new depths he hadn’t even known about.
“How is it you have survived this long?” he growled, aware that he was allowing his anger at himself to spill out and hit the wrong target. “You are so naive it is painful. By rights you should have been devoured by a wolf in the forest.”