Page 85 of Edge of Darkness (Night Prowler 4)
He glowered at her, but she only shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest, edging out of his grip.
“No, Christian. No way. Absolutely not. I’m not moving in with you. And I’m sure not moving in with you under these circumstances, especially with all the baggage we have to sort through. We’ll just have to figure something else out.”
He felt anger begin to thread a burning path through his nerve endings. Very quietly, doing his best to keep his anger and frustration in check, he said, “They will kill you, Ember. If they find you, they will kill you. But not before they’ve had a bit of fun with you, if you get my meaning.”
Her nostrils flared. A little muscle beneath her eye twitched.
He said, “Yes. Use your imagination. Think of the worst thing that a sadistic, genocidal madman might do to you, and then multiply that by a hundred. Maybe a thousand. Then think about how I would feel, knowing I put you in harm’s way, knowing I failed to keep you safe. What do you think that would do to me?”
His voice, the dark, menacing tone of it, the weighted way it emerged from between his gritted teeth, made her hesitate. She actually did appear to think about it. Then she haltingly said, “You would…you would be…”
“Devastated,” he finished roughly, closing what little distance there still was between them. She dropped her arms to her sides but didn’t move away, and he got right up in her face and looked down at her, letting her see the truth of his words. Letting her see the emotion in his eyes.
“It would kill me, Ember. It would be the end of me. If anything happened to you…” he stopped himself because his voice had grown unsteady, his tone a little unhinged. He breathed in a deep, lung-clearing breath and started anew. “I wouldn’t be able to live with it. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
She stared at him in silence, her brown eyes burning his. Her gaze flickered to his mouth, drifted back up to his, and then a tiny, tiny smile lifted the corners of her lips. “I think you’re saying you’re in love with me.”
He breathed out, closed his eyes, and reached for her. She allowed him to gather her into his arms.
“Which is only fair,” she continued with her cheek pressed against his bare chest, “seeing as how I kind of told you the same thing.”
Feeling as if his heart would claw its way out of his chest, he murmured into her hair, “Kind of?”
“This is no time to split hairs,” she said, throwing his earlier words back at him. “But yeah, kind of. It’s not official yet because we haven’t actually said the words, but…” She looked up at him, and something in her expression brought a smile to his face: mischief.
“It’ll do for now.”
Christian exhaled slowly, shaking his head. “Will you please just go and pack a goddamn bag?” he said, his voice low and rough. “And stop trying to give me a stroke?”
She pursed her lips, considering. “I want my own room,” she pronounced, and he made a sound that was both a groan of disbelief and a growl of frustration.
“I’m not going to hop into your bed and set up camp there. We have shit to work out, Christian. A lot of it. We’re going to actually have to talk.”
He lifted his gaze to the ceiling and slowly counted to ten.
More softly, she said, “Maybe I’ll visit your bed, however.”
He looked down at her.
Her smile was both shy and beautiful. “Maybe.”
“You have five minutes before I throw you over my shoulder and forcibly remove you from this apartment,” he said gruffly, feeling not anger but almost a fierce sort of glee that he’d soon have her in his home, near him, able to touch her and kiss her whenever he wanted. He tried his best not to show how happy he was, how eager, because the situation was still dire and dangerous, but God—he was so happy he could sing.
Sometimes terrible situations had a silver lining more precious than sterling. You just had to look at them the right way.
He turned her around, smacked her on the ass—which elicited a startled, outraged cry—then gave her a little shove toward the bedroom. “Five minutes,” he repeated firmly. “Only the necessities. Hurry.”
As she threw him a sour look over her shoulder and disappeared into the bedroom, he crossed to the front door and opened it.
The clothes he left on the floor in the hallway when he’d Shifted to Vapor had disappeared. With a hissed curse under his breath, he slammed the door and startled Ember when he barged into her bedroom.
“One of your very fine neighbors has stolen my clothing. Do you have anything I can wear?”
She pretended to think. “Um, I have those kitty pajamas Asher gave me—”
Christian said her name on a growl and she had the audacity to smirk.
“Actually, I do have something you can wear.”
