Unspoken (Shadow Falls: After Dark #3)(72)

He shot up. Something about how quick he pulled away, felt … wrong. She looked back over her shoulder.

“Not ready? Because of him?”

She just stared. “What?”

“He wants to talk to you,” he said.

“What are you talking about?”

“The email. Your damn email! Look at your screen,” he snapped. “You’ve got three emails from Steve. All with the same subject line. “‘We need to talk.’ What the hell does he need to talk to you about?”

She frowned, faced the computer, and clicked off the screen.

“Oh, hell,” he said. “I’ll see you in the morning.” He started for the door.

She let him get halfway out the door before she spoke. “Don’t,” she snapped.

He swung around.

His bright green eyes expressed his anger. “Don’t what, Della?”

“Don’t be like that,” she said.

“Like what?” he asked.

“Like … like I’m doing something wrong. Like … you’re jealous.” Like you have a right to be jealous.

“I’m not jealous,” he said and lifted his arms behind his head, and the muscles in his arms bulged.

She was so caught up in his muscles that she almost missed that little hiccup of his heart. And she wouldn’t have wanted to do that. Because this was the first time she heard his heart jump to a lie.

So the amazing Chase occasionally couldn’t hide the truth. She liked knowing that.

He must have felt or heard his heart skip, because his expression tightened. “Okay, I’m jealous. But how would you feel if we turned this upside down?”

“Upside down?” she asked.

“How would you feel if I told you Cindy was calling me and asking me to meet up with her?”

She stood up and before she could decide what to say, she’d said it. “That depends. Who’s Cindy?”

“She’s nobody. Just a name, just a name of a girl. A girl who wants me for my body.”

For some reason that struck her as funny. She felt her lips twitch. “You’ve got girls wanting you for your body?” Not that I blame them.

He stared at her for several seconds and she saw the anger fade from his eyes. “Of course I do. Look at me.”

A laugh slipped from her lips. “You don’t have an ego problem, do you?”

“No,” he said, smiling, but then sighed. “Just a Della problem.”

He walked closer and stood right in front of her. He stared right into her eyes. “I want to touch you. I want … what Natasha and Liam have. I want to kiss you when I want to kiss you, I want to check and make sure you’ve got on the panties with the right day of the week, I want to make love to you, I want to wake up with you in bed like I did this morning. Do you have any idea how good that felt?”

She looked away and in her heart she heard those two words from earlier. Not now.

She faced him. “Not now.”

“Why? Why not now? If it’s not Steve, then what?”

“Because I don’t trust—”

“Damn it!” He held up his hands in frustration. “I’ve done everything I could to show you that … that you can trust me. I’ve quit the council, I’ve answered all your questions. I haven’t lied. Not once, Della.”

“It’s not you I don’t trust.” The moment she said it, she knew it wasn’t completely true and her heart noted it. “Maybe it is you a little, but it’s mostly this I don’t trust.” Her heart didn’t disagree with that statement.

He shook his head as if puzzled.

“This.” She waved a hand between them.

“What’s this?”

“This … the feeling. The chills. The thrills. And the fear. All of it, Chase. You give me your blood and suddenly I’m obsessed with you. How do you know any of this is real? And what if you wake up one day and it’s not there anymore?”

“You don’t trust love?”

Della shook her head. “Hell, no, I don’t trust love. Love’s kicked my ass too many times to trust it.”

“You can’t—”

“Yes, I can,” she snapped. “I can do anything I want.” Her chest felt heavy, achy. “But we aren’t talking about love, Chase. Why are you even throwing that demon into the mix? We’re talking about a bond. A chemical reaction. Something that nobody can even define, that happens when one Reborn gives another Reborn blood. It hasn’t been going on long enough for anyone to know if it really lasts.”

“Della, I know—” He stopped talking and waved to the door.

“No, you don’t.”

He put his hand to his lips.

Della heard the thump on the porch.

Burnett walked in. “I said send me the names—”

His gaze flipped from Chase to Della. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” they both said in unison and then the sound of two hearts skipping beats sounded.

Burnett just raised a brow. “Okay. But can you please give me the names of the stores that sell this high-priced tennis shoe?”

“I sent it.” Della walked to her computer. Where she saw it hadn’t gone out. “I’m sending it, now.”