Hell, maybe she is.
Her fearful gaze shreds me. I turn away from it, and three furious strides carry me out the door of the studio. I head back to the kitchen to retrieve the rest of the Macallan.
Fuck the need for a glass.
I mean to kill the whole damn bottle.
15
JARED
I don’t even hear Melanie following me until I wheel around with the whisky in one hand and find her standing right behind me.
She’s dressed now, albeit hastily. She didn’t bother with her lacy little white bra or the panties that she’d folded neatly on a chair in the studio. Her light cotton dress is wrapped around her like armor, her arms crossed in front of her like a shield.
She’s wary of me, and with good cause. Even so, she holds my glare as she tilts her head up to look me in the eye. “What just happened back there? What’s wrong with you?”
A cold laugh bursts out of me. Christ, I wouldn’t even know where to begin.
Now that I’m squared off against her with only inches to separate us, the trace of palsy in my fingers seems the least of my concerns. I want her. Our agreement prohibits me from touching her, but I’m not thinking about contracts or legalities. I’m not thinking about Hathaway or how satisfying it would be to seduce his woman right out of his arms.
All I’m thinking about is her.
How breathtakingly beautiful she is. How bold and aggravatingly tenacious she is, even when she’s afraid.
I’m thinking about how much I want to pull her into my arms.
And I’m thinking about what an asshole I am for putting those troubled shadows in her eyes.
Her brow creases as she searches my face. “I don’t know what your problem is, other than that bottle in your hand. But for your own sake, I hope you get some help.”
“Get some help?” Instead of laying out all the truths she won’t want to hear, I settle on a sharp chuckle that sounds as brittle as it tastes. “Nothing’s wrong with me that another drink won’t take care of.”
“No,” she says, apparently unaware of how threadbare my control feels right now. “Another drink seems like the last thing you need right now.”
“What I need? What the hell would you know about that?” I sneer down at her, my breath gusting through flared nostrils. My hand tightens around the neck of the whisky bottle, if only to keep from wrapping my fingers around the fiery tendrils of her long hair so I can pull her against me like I want to do.
She swallows, those luminous eyes of hers changing from uncertain, apprehensive blue to a tempest of dusky gray as her pupils darken and enlarge under my stare.
“What’s the matter, Ms. Laurent? Afraid to take a guess? Or are you just afraid to say the words out loud?”
She doesn’t have to speak for me to read what’s going on behind her silence and her disapproving stance. I can see her pulse beating in the pretty hollow at the base of her throat. I can feel the heat of her skin intensifying, practically burning me across the scant distance separating us. Her nipples are tight beneath the soft cotton sundress she’s still clutching together in one small fist over her heart. Her lovely, all too tempting body vibrates with enough awareness to charge the air like the coming of a storm.
She knows damn well what I need, all right. She knows what I want.
She knows, because she wants the same thing.
A breath leaks out of her. “I should leave now.”
Her quiet murmur is far from convincing. I should step away from her, but I can’t convince myself to do that, either.
“Our session’s not over yet.”
“I can’t be here if you’re going to be like this. I won’t.” She gives a tight shake of her head. “I don’t care that I signed your damn contract. I don’t care about your money. I’ve been doing just fine without any help, and Daniel will have to clean up his own mess somehow. As for you, you’ll have to find another outlet for your anger and abuse, because it’s not going to be me.”
Her words are raw, her vulnerability as she hurls them at me strike me harder than a physical blow. Vibrating with the force of her emotions, she starts to turn away. My free hand moves before I’m even aware of it.
“Hey.” I halt her, wrapping my fingers around the delicate firmness of her arm. She freezes in my grasp, wary and untrusting, her gaze flying up to mine.
I scowl down at her, struggling with the self-directed fury that’s still running hot through my veins, and the remorse I feel for subjecting her to any part of it.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, my voice like gravel.
Sorry for being an asshole. Sorry for frightening her. Sorry for wanting her more than I have any right to.
Part of me knows I should let her go. I never should have brought her into any of this in the first place.
But it’s too late for that.
Too late for either one of us. There’s no undoing the connection that’s been smoldering between us since our eyes locked for the first time. Now, those flames are on the verge of exploding into something neither of us can control.
If my desire for her was only about taking something of Hathaway’s, I’d already be inside her. But this need is something different. It’s something deeper. Something she’s not ready for.
Maybe neither of us are ready to give in to what we both want from each other.
Maybe neither of us are ready to let someone look inside all those dark corners. God knows I’ve kept my demons locked up tight for years. That’s where they need to stay.
That’s why the right thing to do would be to let her go—from the
