I pushed all of that aside. “Let go of me. There’s nothing I want to talk to you about.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Agree to let this need for revenge go, and I will.”
“How about you agree to do the same thing? Oh, wait, we’ve had this conversation. You think it’s different because it’s you.”
The King’s eyes swept over my face. “You want to know about Aric. I think you’re being this way because of us.”
“There’s no us,” I shot back.
“You’re right.”
The sharp slice of pain returned, cutting through me as if he’d jammed a knife into my chest.
His nostrils flared, and he took a step toward me. “Shit.”
Damn it, he was sensing what I was feeling. There were a lot of things that annoyed me when it came to Caden, but this was probably in the top three.
The King looked away, jaw hard. “I’m—”
“Don’t.”
He ignored me. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t care.”
“But you do.”
“And that’s the problem, right? You know, I do have something to say to you. You led me on. But for what reason? That’s what I don’t get. What did you have to gain by pretending you…wanted me? Were you just bored and decided to mess with my head?”
His gaze snapped back to mine. “That was not it.”
“Then, what? You felt like you owed me because I let you feed on me when you were dying?” I demanded. “Or were you just slumming it with the thirty-year-old human?”
The King’s eyes widened, and when he spoke, his voice was so low that I almost didn’t hear him. “Why do you view yourself so poorly?”
“What?” I gasped, skin flashing hot and then cold.
He shook his head. “You have to. It’s the only reason you’d believe that was my motivation.”
His words stunned me, and the little voice in the back of my head that whispered that there was some truth to what he stated propelled me into action. I yanked on my arm and, this time, he let me go. Unprepared for the shift, I stumbled backward, and my damn boots were no help.
The King sprang forward, catching me. A startled heartbeat later, I was in his arms, and my hands were on his chest.
Holy crap.
This was as close as we’d been since he kissed me, and I seemed to have forgotten how incredibly warm he was. His body heat chased the chill from the air. Standing this close to him was like sunbathing. My skin turned shivery as a deep, aching pulse took root.
Space. I needed space. Like a different time zone’s worth of space.
But I didn’t move.
Slowly, I lifted my head. Our gazes connected.
There was hotness to his stare. A thick, predatory gleam to his eyes, and a challenge to the way his lips parted. A wild thought occurred to me. He wanted me to push him away, and he wanted to chase.
A deep, hidden part of me wanted to be hunted by him.
And that was so wrong.
The King’s gaze drifted over my face once, then moved lower. I felt my chest swell against his.
“I hate when you look like this,” he said, his voice thick. “Not the dress. I love the dress. And the shoes. But the hair? Makeup? I hate it.”
It took nothing for me to remember him telling me that before. The fact that he preferred me, the real me, was one of the reasons I…
Why I had started to fall for him.
His chin lowered. “You should burn all these wigs and throw away the makeup.”
My heart pounded. “Not going to happen.” I sounded way too breathless. Way too affected.
“That’s a shame.” His head tilted, and then his lips were inches from mine. When he spoke, I felt his breath. “I would pay any amount of money for that.”
I considered that. “How much? Tink is an expensive roommate.”
“I can imagine.” His eyes took on a heavy-lidded quality, and I felt the softest, barely-there brush of his mouth.
I gasped.
The King jerked away. This time, he didn’t spring forward when I stumbled. I caught myself as he moved back several steps until he wasn’t even within arm’s reach of me. Breathing heavily, I didn’t know if I should feel relieved or disappointed that he hadn’t kissed me. Well, the problem was, I knew I should feel relieved. And I didn’t. Disappointment crashed through me as we stared at each other in the soft glow of the street lamps.
“Go home,” he said after a few moments. “There’s nothing here for you.”
I flinched at the double meaning. His words stung, but a wave of prickly heat soothed the hurt. I latched on to it. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
“I’m not.” He folded his arms. “I’m giving you a choice.”
“Really?” I laughed as I mimicked his stance, crossing my arms. “Sure doesn’t sound like it.”
“Oh, but it is. I’m telling you to go home, and I’m giving you the choice to do so all by yourself. Or, I could pick you up, put you in my car, and drive you there.”
My mouth dropped open. “I would love to see you try to do that. Seriously.”
His head cocked to the side, and then he unfolded his arms, taking a step forward.
I threw out my hand. “If you so much as touch me, I will cut off your nuts and stab you in the face.”
“Damn.” He chuckled, sending a fine shiver down my spine. The sound was as deep and as nice as I remembered. “That’s aggressive.”
“I’m feeling really, really aggressive.”
“Hmm.” He tipped up his chin. “Normally when I touch you, you want to do other things to my balls.”
My lips parted on a sharp inhale. A dozen different things I could do to his balls danced like really weird sugarplums in my head, and none of them included kicking him.
Then I saw the way his jaw had softened and noticed the curve to his lips. He was…amused.
Fuck that.
I stiffened my spine. I’d be damned if he found me amusing. “You know what? You’re right. There was a whole lot of things I wanted to do to them. Kiss them. Lick them. Suck them.”
His humor vanished as his gaze sharpened on me. An almost predatory glint filled his eyes, making them luminous.
“I wanted to get so familiar with them that we were on a first-name basis,” I continued, keeping my hand up. “But that was before. Not anymore. Now, I’d rather cut them off.”
“You sure about that, sunshine?”
“Don’t call me that. And, yes, I’m a hundred percent positive. A hundred and twenty-five percent, to be exact.”
“A hundred and twenty-five percent?” he murmured. “Interesting. Then why haven’t you engaged your blade with me?”
With a frown, I glanced down at my wrist. He was right. I hadn’t triggered the blade from the cuff.
Damn it.
Damn it all to hell.
Chapter 3
Why do you view yourself so poorly?
The King’s words haunted me throughout the evening and all night long. Was that what he thought? That I had no self-esteem or sense of self-worth? Just because I couldn’t understand why he’d pursued me and then wanted nothing to do with me.