Rogue (Real #4)(71)

“Princess.” He whispers the word almost reverently as he starts for me.

Motherf*cker!

I leap to my feet and whip one hand out to hold him at bay. “No! Stay. Stay there, don’t you touch me. Just tell me one thing . . .” I’m assaulted by my pain as other memories keep piling up in my brain.

Lies . . . lies . . . lies . . .

I can barely make myself speak. “Were you collecting?” My eyes blur with tears when I look at him, as if the bastard hasn’t already made me cry enough today. “Were you collecting from me?”

“Is that what you think?” he asks, softly, standing a few feet away with about a tornado’s worth of energy simmering around him.

A rage unlike any other bubbles within me as I reach for the hem of my T-shirt. “Here we go then!” I jerk it off my head, drop my shorts, kicking them in the air—in his direction. “Let’s collect. Let’s get this bet over with. Surely you’ve received partial payment for all the other times I f*cked you?” Then I start slipping off my G-string. “So how many more do we have left? How many? Huh?” I kick my panties aside and stand naked before him. “Huh, Greyson?”

He’s frozen like a statue, his eyes brilliant as I gather my T-shirt in one fist and toss it in his direction. “C’mon—let’s get this over with. Just tell me how many f*cks it’s going to take.”

He grabs the shirt and in one lightning-fast second, covers the distance between us, pressing it into my chest, calmly murmuring, “Get dressed. We’ll talk later today. I have one man left to see, and I don’t have much time, Melanie. My father is very ill . . .”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Just put this on please!” he roars.

Angry, but suddenly scared, I start slipping back into my T-shirt as he goes to stand by the window, staring outside in bitter silence at a distant green mountain.

The silence is deafening.

I’m suddenly . . . heartbroken.

Not even angry. I feel like he gathered all my dreams, all my hopes, and all my emotions and put them in a blender, and now they’re pureed into nothing. They’ll never, ever be pieced back together again. Ever.

“Who are you?” I ask dejectedly. A ball of fire is gathering in my throat. “At least tell me that. At least tell me that, Greyson.”

“Zero is an alias. Because I’m . . .” He turns around, spreads the arms that have always made me feel protected out to encompass the room. “Untraceable, supposedly.”

A tense silence settles between us.

His gaze shutters as he murmurs, almost as though he doesn’t want to say it but some decent part of him is forcing him to, “I was retired, but now it seems that I help collect gambling payments owed to my father. Forty-eight collections. That’s all I had to do in order to retire again. I’ve got one more . . . and you . . . and then I’m done with this. And he’ll tell me where my mother is.”

And you, I silently repeat, the blender spinning my emotions again.

“What’s your real name?” I ask thickly.

“You already know my name,” he says, his voice low and gruff as a spark of tenderness steals into his eyes. “You’ve moaned it. Screamed it. Whispered it. It’s Greyson, Melanie.” He starts for me as though he suddenly needs to make some sort of contact, but I can’t bear it if he touches me. I back away, shaking my head from side to side.

“So you’re one of their leaders. Leader of these mafia Underground men,” I say.

His eyes burn with some unspeakable emotion. “If that’s what you want to call me, yes.”

“My necklace. You didn’t even buy it. Did you?” I can hardly speak, my voice is so pained and raw.

“Some payments are made in substance. And we keep them on hand for bribes—so yes, princess, I didn’t buy your bauble exactly.”

“Wow. My friends were right, it meant nothing to you.”

“Which friend? The one you were kissing last night? Where is that necklace, Melanie?” He stalks toward me faster and I back away until my spine is flat against the wall and he presses into me, a big predator with eyes that somehow own me as they look down at me.

He curls a hand around my neck, and his hunger reaches me, weakens me. I feel my knees wobble at his nearness. His scent. God, I missed him and I hate that I did. That I do.

He’s standing here and I still do.

Miss him.

Want him.

“You kill people,” I rasp.

His hand circles my throat, and the pad of his thumb slowly, sinuously, begins caressing my pulse point as his eyes drop to my lips. “Sometimes.” His voice is a low rasp.

“Do you torture them?”

I’m breathless.

I’m breathless and hurting and why can’t I unlove him? Why can’t I unlove him?

“I do what I have to,” he murmurs as he strokes my neck with his thumb and keeps staring, keeps hungering openly for my mouth, his gaze so powerful I lick my lips nervously, and it only makes his eyes darken even more. He hungers even more.

My breath is no longer mine. But I keep trying to get air into my lungs, because all the emotions in my chest are too painful to hold back. “Stupid little bimbo, is that why you chose me?” I ask thickly.