“It’s about me.” His statement is hard and flat, and it sits between us like a concrete block.
“You?”
He cuts his gaze, looks skyward, and then to my surprise, he walks away, heading toward the kitchen that connects to the living room.
I shrug out of my jacket and hurry after him tossing it on the couch as I pass it by, and continue my pursuit. Eric rounds the island and opens the fridge. I’m standing with my hand on the island counter, facing him when he shuts the door and removes the cap off a beer. He offers it to me. “It’s a good time for a drink.”
I don’t want the damn beer but I take it. He opens the fridge again and grabs another bottle, twisting off the top, as he had for me. Only this time, when the top is gone, he tips back the beer and downs half of it. I set mine down untouched. “Talk to me. You’re scaring me.”
He fixes me in a hooded stare, his handsome face all hard lines and shadows, as he orders softly, “Drink the beer, Harper.” He downs another swallow of his own.
“I don’t want the beer.”
He sets his bottle down with a solid thud, then closes the space between us, a predatory intensity about him, as he drags me to him. “Then what do you want?”
“Answers. I want you to talk to me. I want you to—” He tangles rough fingers into my hair and drags my mouth to his.
“No talking,” he commands. “Not now. Understand?”
“No,” I whisper, his breath warm on my cheek, his body hard against mine. His cock thick against my belly. My sex clenches and my nipples ache. I want him, but this is a distraction. This is him avoiding conversation.
“Eric, please—”
> “I like that word,” he murmurs, and then he’s kissing me, and the first taste of him is passion, the next demand, possession, and yes, anger. He’s angry. He’s outright pissed for the first time since the hotel room in New York City when he came to me and wanted to drive me away. Only I don’t think he ever wanted to drive me away. He wanted to drive away the hell of his past. He wanted to drive away the family he would deny if they’d just go away. He’s in that place again. He needs to drive them away, and as much as I want to know what’s triggered him, there’s a shudder that slides through his body, and I understand what it means. He’s on the edge of that cliff the savant in him can drive him to, the numbers in his head beating at his mind and his emotions. Whatever that message I was given says it’s personal to him, really damn personal.
My gorgeous, talented, gifted man needs me right now. He needs this escape and I will not deny him. He turns me and presses me against the refrigerator, my back to the steel surface, his hands sliding over my breasts, cupping them, even as his tongue licks into my mouth. I reach for his shirt, but he’s already caught the hem of mine and it’s over my head in about two seconds. He tosses it and his eyes meet mine, dark shadows in their depths that do nothing to hide the war that rages inside this man.
I want to ask about the message again, I want to ask what it says, what it means, but that is not what he needs right now. That is not what comes next and we both know it. “I know what’s happening right now. I know what you’re battling. I want to be here for you. What do you need right now?”
“More than I deserve from you.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means I should walk away, but no matter how many times I think that or say that, I won’t. I know I won’t do it.” His body quakes, almost as if he’s experiencing an internal tremor that I can physically see.
I press my hand to his chest. “What do you need right now? Right this minute. Say it. Tell me. Take it. Do it.”
His hands grip my wrists, and he pulls me close. “You don’t want to know what I need right now. You don’t want to see me like I am right now. I don’t want you to see me like I am right now.”
“And I don’t want you to hide this part of you. What do you need from me right now?”
He shuts his eyes, a turbulent, tormented look on his face, his grip almost too hard, but somehow, I wish he’d hold on tighter. “Eric,” I whisper.
He opens his eyes and looks at me. “Go to the living room and undress. Wait for me there.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Harper
“Go to the living room and undress. Wait for me there.”
Eric watches me with this command between us. His command to me.
But this isn’t about control. I know that instantly. It’s about trust and for reasons that stretch beyond the Kingston family, but certainly rooted in their very existence. So yes, his order is daunting, but it’s not one that I will refuse him. I don’t believe he would ever hurt me. In fact, he’s proven that he’ll protect me. That he’ll include me in his life, down to making the decision to spare his father, the man who he blames for his mother’s death. With these things in mind, I don’t let him wonder what I would do if I walked into the living room, where I could still back out.
I stand right there in the kitchen and shed every last inch of what I’m wearing down to my socks. Once I’m naked, vulnerable with this man beyond the fact that I’m wearing nothing and he’s still dressed, vulnerable in how much I’ve fallen for him, my chin lifts with a realization. “I don’t hesitate with you, Eric,” I say. “One day, I hope you won’t with me either.” And he does hesitate with me. He does automatically package me into a box that he labels “Kingston,” which translates to pain. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have left me over the baby news. He would have come to me. I press my hand to his chest. “I know you hold back. I know you do, and it’s okay. I know what this family has done to you. Just as I know the real love of a family, and I want to be yours.”
He stares down at me, his eyes shadowed, hooded, and he doesn’t move. He’s more stone than man, more muscle than heart. With another realization, I let my hand fall away. He wanted me to go to the living room because he needed a moment to compose himself and step outside whatever savant-related episode he’s battling. I might want him to do that with me, I might want to understand this part of him more fully, but he still needs space. I have to understand that.