High Voltage (Fever #10)(55)

It hadn’t eluded me that the first man to draw my gaze after Dancer died—at six feet four inches and 240 pounds, with short dark hair—resembled Ryodan. There are two types of men I’m attracted to and they’re rare as hell: brilliant, sexy, full of wonder, pure as a wide-open sky and easy to be around; or brilliant, sexy, inhumanly strong, carved by ruthless experience and difficult to handle. I like extremes.

Ryodan was dark and elegant, his powerful body poured into a charcoal Versace suit, a subtly embossed white shirt, a silver and black tie that matched his eyes, wide cuff glinting at his wrist, the tips of intricate tattoos peeking above his crisp white collar, dark Italian shoes. He was as dichotomous as his club, sophistication on the surface, primal beast beneath. His jaw was dusted with dark stubble, and—I inhaled lightly—he smelled good. I didn’t remember him smelling so good. The wan light of the single bulb illuminating the foyer behind him shadowed the regal bone structure of his face. Primordial, polished, pain-in-the-ass man that never fails to rattle me. Or make me feel painfully alive. I want him. He drives me batshit crazy.

    He held my gaze a long moment. Beautiful by any standards, in any century, on any world, woman, his eyes said.

I willed my eyes blank. Emerald shallows lapping gently at a shore. Not a tsunami out of control.

As I began to descend the last flight, he said, “What did you miss the most about me, Dani?”

Aside from that dark-velvet, exotically accented voice, his clear, unfiltered way of seeing me; his ability to kick my brain up into a higher gear; his endless challenges; and how he always seemed to understand what I was feeling, even when I didn’t? “Clever,” I said coolly. “?‘Most’ implies that I missed many things. I didn’t think about you at all.”

“You need to stop boxing the things that disturb you.”

I narrowed my eyes. “How I organize my brain is none of your business.”

“It is when I’m the recipient of the resultant chaos.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“When you refuse to think about an issue, it remains unchanged, in precisely the same state as you tucked it away.”

“Precisely the point of boxing it. The issue dies. Can no longer affect you. It’s a damned effective tactic.”

“Short-term, yes. Long-term, a recipe for disaster. When you next encounter whatever you boxed your feelings about, you’re ambushed by repressed, unresolved emotion.”

“Your point eludes me,” I said stiffly. It didn’t. I just didn’t like it. No one ever called me on my shit. I’d gotten used to that. I’d missed that about him. Even as I resented his logic for being so bloody logical.

    “If you’d thought about me while I was away, you wouldn’t have been a perfect storm of oppositional desires at Chester’s this morning.”

Truth. Wasn’t about to admit it. “It had nothing to do with you. I was PMS and hungry.”

He smiled faintly. “I see. So, that’s how we’re going to play it. Commando or thong?”

My face screwed into an instant scowl. “What?”

He laughed. “Ah, Dani, that’s one of the many things I missed about you. When your eyes flash, your skin flushes, and you’re even more fucking beautiful. I used to picture your face while I was gone, when you were on one of your rants, stalking, fierce, and high-tempered. I missed it. Tell me something you missed about me. I must have slipped out of your box every now and then.”

I gave him a stony look. He’d pictured my face while he was gone? Then why hadn’t he called? I wasn’t a woman to be softened with a few nice words after two bloody endless years of silence. Two years in which he’d showed me precisely how little I meant to him.

As I neared the bottom of the staircase, he said, “We need a few rules.”

“I don’t do rules.” Not true. I had an elaborate set of my own. “And certainly not yours.”

“Ours,” he corrected. “Mutually agreed upon. Rule number six—”

“What are rules one through five? Do I get to make those up?” I had a list ready.

“We’ll get to those. I was merely making the point that this particular rule isn’t the most important between us. The next time—”

    “And, of course, you’re the one who gets to decide what’s most important.”

“—you want to blow off steam, say the word. I’ve got a fully outfitted sparring gym at Chester’s—”

“Level seven. Boxing ring, every weapon imaginable. I exploded all your punching bags. I took your guns, too. Oh, and those cool studded leather gloves with the recessed blades.”

“—where we can glove up and spar, you little snoop. In private.”

I was getting mad again. He sees right through me. He was right and that pissed me off even more. Putting him in a mental compartment had, indeed, left me unprepared for his return. He was here now but I was still stuck two years ago, in a cemetery, hurt and angry, with two years of additional hurt and anger heaped on top of it. I needed to address that quickly, and physical activity always helps me think. “Fine. Let’s go now.”

“And forgo a night with you in that dress? Not a chance. We’ll have our date first.”