Ruthless Creatures (Queens & Monsters, #1)(34)

“I’m not going to play games with you. I won’t try to keep you guessing. I’ve told you what I feel and what I want. I’ll keep doing that until you feel safe enough to take the next step or you’ve had enough of it and tell me to fuck off.

“There’s no need to be nervous around me. I’m the least unpredictable man you’ve ever met. What I want from you won’t change if you say the wrong thing. It won’t change if you gain weight or cut your hair or decide to go vegan. It won’t change even if you say you never want to see me again and we go our separate ways. I’d honor that request, but it wouldn’t make me stop wanting you. But you should know…”

He hesitates. “You should know that I’m not a good man.”

I’m locked in his embrace. My heart is beating like a hammer. I feel like the floor has dropped out from under my feet, or that I’m tumbling freefall through space, and it’s all because of his words and his smell and his warm, strong body pressed against mine.

If and when he kisses me, I’m toast.

“A bad man would never warn a woman he wanted that he wasn’t good.”

Frustrated by that, he shakes his head. “It’s not hyperbole. It’s the truth.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You should.”

“What if I said I didn’t care?”

“Then I’d say you were being foolish.”

We stare at each other, nose to nose, both of us breathing raggedly. It would only take a slight bend of his neck for his mouth to be on mine.

Suddenly, I want that so much, it leaves me breathless.

“You promised you’d never hurt me. Was that the truth?”

He answers instantly. “Yes.”

“So you being bad…that’s about other people?”

He struggles for a moment in silence, his brows drawn together, looking so handsome, it hurts. “It’s about my job. My lifestyle. My life.”

“You’re telling me you’re a criminal.”

Again, he answers instantly. “Yes.”

If my heart beats any faster, I’ll drop dead. “How big of a criminal?”

“The biggest. The baddest. The worst.”

“This doesn’t make sense. What kind of criminal would go around advertising he’s a baddie?”

His voice turns hard. “The kind that needs the woman he wants to understand what she’s getting herself into.”

I laugh a little, confused and frustrated. “So now you’re trying to scare me away?”

“I’m trying to educate you.”

“May I ask why?”

His voice goes rough. “Because once you’re in my bed, you’re mine. And that’s it. Once I have you, I’ll never let you go. Not even if you ask me to.”

We stare at each other. After a moment, I say, “Wow. We haven’t even had our first date yet.”

He growls, “This is who I am. The only bad thing I don’t do is lie. I’ll never lie to you, even if I know you’ll fucking hate it.”

He’s agitated, I see that clearly. Agitated and irritated, his temper high.

It doesn’t scare me. Instead, it intrigues the hell out of me. So does everything he’s said.

All that money I spent on therapy…what a waste.

I say, “Okay. Let’s say I accept what you’re telling me. Let’s say we move forward with the assumption that I know you’re on Santa’s naughty list.”

He sighs, closing his eyes. “It’s so much fucking worse than that.”

“Please stop cursing at me. I’m trying to say something.”

He opens his eyes and looks at me, his eyes blazing. A muscle twitches like crazy in his clenched jaw.

Fascinated by that rebellious muscle, I trace it with the tip of my finger.

He stills under my touch, so much so that it seems as if he’s stopped breathing.

I say softly, “My whole life, I’ve been good. I made all the right decisions. I didn’t do anything foolish or wild. Even when I was a kid, I followed all the rules. None of that protected me from the worst of what life had to offer. Being good didn’t keep me from being hurt, or being depressed, or wishing more days than not that I had the guts to kill myself to escape the pain.

“That you’re honest enough to tell me what you just did…I suppose it should make me afraid, but instead, it makes me feel safer. It makes me want to trust you. Because the truth is always so much harder than making up something pretty. I’d rather have the ugly truth than a beautiful lie.

“So let’s just go on our date like two normal people. Let’s enjoy ourselves. After that, we’ll take it one day at a time. An hour at a time if we have to. There’s no need to settle everything tonight. Okay?”

He gazes at me in tense silence for a long moment. I see the wheels turning behind his eyes. Then he nods, grudgingly, as if agreeing to keep seeing me is against his better judgment.

That makes me feel safer with him, too.

Nobody truly bad would put another person’s well-being before their own.

Narcissists and psychopaths don’t operate that way.

Feeling bold, I wrap my arms around his shoulders again and stretch against him like a cat. “So…this kiss you mentioned earlier on the phone.”