I held out the coffee cup to Rhoan. "Hold this for me. I won't be long."
He didn't say anything, just accepted the cup. I rose and walked toward Quinn. The soft breeze swirled around us, tugging at his dark hair, catching his scent and spinning it around me. Heat prickled across my skin, and my hormones did their usual giddy dance.
I couldn't ever imagine not wanting him. But I was not the sum of my hormones, and I was tired of our game. I needed this new start Rhoan had offered, I truly did.
We stopped in the middle of the street. His gaze met mine, his eyes obsidian stone and expression shuttered. The emotions I'd sensed earlier were gone, carefully concealed behind the wall of his careful non-expression.
It only served to reinforce the Tightness of my decision.
"It ends here, tonight."
"It'll never end between us, and you know it."
"What I know," I said softly, "is that you've used me, and continued to use me, these last ten months. You swear to care, and yet I am never first in your thoughts, never the one you rush to when things go wrong. Your own aims and needs are always first and foremost. You proved this by using the link we'd formed to leash and control the very desires that make me what I am."
"What did you miss out on?" he said, a touch of anger in his voice. "A few nights with strangers? Big deal."
I stared at him, unable to believe he couldn't see the wrongness in what he'd done. "What you did is really no different to what Talon, Misha, or even Starr have all done to me. You tried to force me down a path that was not my choosing. Damm it, you hated it when it was done to you, Quinn. You stripped your so-called fiancee of her identity and her life in retaliation. And yet here you are, using a psychic connection rather than a drug to force me down a path of your desiring."
He didn't say anything. Hard to refute something that was nothing more than the truth, I suppose - though I am surprised he didn't try. He usually did.
"Jack's given me six weeks off work," I continued. "And I want double that to sort out my life. During that time, I don't want any contact from you. I don't want to see you, I don't want to hear from you, I don't want you in my thoughts or in my dreams. I want a total and absolute break."
"For only three months?" His voice was still flat, and yet I had an odd feeling he was controlling himself very tightly.
Which was half the damn problem.
How could I trust what I never, ever saw?
How could I trust emotions he kept telling me about but never really showed in action or deed?
"After three months, I'll see where my head is at. There's no guarantee whatsoever that I'll ever be with you again, Quinn."
He didn't say anything for several heartbeats, just stared at me, his obsidian eyes darker than the night and a hell of a lot more dangerous.
Then he grabbed my arms and crushed me against him, his mouth finding mine almost savagely. I could have fought. I really could. But I didn't want to. If this was a good-bye, then I sure as hell intended to enjoy it.
And if it wasn't? I'd enjoy it anyway, and smack him later.
Because this kiss was like nothing I'd ever felt before. It was a wild, erotic, and very unapologetic affirmation of what he wanted. What he felt. He might never, ever have said the words or hinted at emotions, but it was there, right there now, in his kiss, in the press of his body, in the thick, desperate heat that swirled around us.
But it was too little, too late. I needed time. I needed to think. I broke off our kiss, pulled out of his grasp.
"No," I said, holding out a hand and backing away from him. "Enough. You owe me time, Quinn. If nothing else, you owe me that."
"Don't ask for things you don't really want," he said, voice little more than a harsh rasp. "Because you might just get them."
With that, he wrapped the shadows around his body, spun around, and walked away. I let out a slow, shuddery breath.
"Well, that went a whole lot better than I expected," Rhoan said from across the road.
I laughed softly and spun around.
And suddenly, gloriously, felt free.
"How about we go to the pub and I buy you a steak and a beer?" I shoved my hands in the pockets of my borrowed coat and offered him my arm.
He handed me my coffee, then hooked his arm through mine and began walking down the street. "And after?"