Strong Enough (Tall, Dark, and Dangerous #1)(32)

“My mother used to do that when she was worrying about something,” I tell Muse when I see her playing with the charm of a necklace I’ve noticed she keeps hidden under her shirt.

Muse glances down at the small, silver disk she’s been rubbing against her lip for the last hour.

“This was my mother’s. I found it under the edge of her bed after she left.”

“What is it?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. Some sort of charm. The back side is missing, so I can’t really tell what it’s supposed to be.”

“I’m surprised you kept it.”

At this she turns to look questioningly at me. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“You said you wouldn’t look for her because she didn’t want you and your dad. I just assumed . . .”

“What? That I didn’t love her? That I haven’t missed her every day for the last twenty years?”

“I guess.”

She turns away. From the corner of my eye, I see her chest rise and fall with her sigh. “Unfortunately, that’s not how love works. No matter what she did, she was my mother. Nothing will change that.”

“How do you think love is supposed to work? How does it work for you?”

“It holds you captive, whether you want it to or not. It never lets you go, no matter how much you want to be set free.”

“Yet you were upset because Matt didn’t love you like you wanted to be loved. Is that what you’d want for him?”

Glassy emerald eyes slide onto mine and stop. “Yes. But I want love to be wanted. I want to be wanted.”

“I feel sure that wasn’t the problem between you two.”

“And why is that?”

“I can’t imagine a man not wanting you.”

At this, she turns in her seat to face me. She looks all too eager to talk now. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to pull her out of her shell. Damn guilt.

“Do you want me?”

“I haven’t tried to hide that I do.”

“Exactly what do you want from me?”

I glance in her direction. Even in the flash of oncoming headlights, I see the intensity of her expression. She’s got some anger to get out and she’s looking for a fight.

Anger I can deal with. It’s the other things she makes me feel that concern me.

“I think you know.”

“Maybe, but tell me anyway.”

There’s tension in everything from her voice to the stiff set of her shoulders. Angry tension. And sexual tension. “What do I want from you?” I ask softly, glancing over her face, her shining eyes and pouty lips. “I want your moans in my mouth. I want your fingernails on my skin. I want your naked body against mine.”

Her lips part and I see the tip of her tongue wet them. For a few seconds the sexual wins out over the angry. It breaks through the haze like a plea and it pulls me in so much that I don’t want to look away. God, just to think of the moment when she gives in, when she lets go and throws herself into feeling, like she wants so desperately to do.

But then, as though she makes a conscious determination to hold on to the anger, she pulls away from me and crosses her arms over her chest. “How very gallant! Just what every girl wants to hear.”

I turn my attention back to the road. “It should be because it’s honest.”

“Still, you could’ve said something else.”

“Would you rather I lie? Would you rather me say that you make me feel things I don’t want to feel? Would you rather I have said that I can picture myself spending nights inside you and mornings watching you sleep? Would you rather that I mislead you to get what we both want, just so you can feel better about wanting it?”

As I watch her, I’m pissed by how true those words felt. The worst thing I could do is fall for this woman.

Anger battles with hurt. Or maybe disappointment. It’s there on her face. I just can’t be sure which. Her mouth works itself open and closed a few times before she replies with a soft, “No.”

“Then why don’t we just stick with what we know? I want you. You want me. We have some time to burn. Why not spend it as pleasantly as possible?”

“Maybe I’m not like that. Maybe I’m not that kind of a girl.”

“Maybe you’re not. But maybe you could be. Just for a little while.”

“You could really be happy with that?”

“Yes. Very. And so could you if you’d give it a chance.” To this, she says nothing, just stares at my profile so hard I can feel her eyes like a touch. “What if I promise not to tell that you’re ‘that kind of girl’?”

“Is that what you’d promise me?”

“I could. Why? What kind of promise do you need?”

“A promise not to hurt me, but I bet you’d never give me that one,” she says quietly, her eyes cast down at hands that now move restlessly in her lap.

More guilt.

Guilt. Damn it.

But why? Why now? Why her?

“I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters.” When I say nothing else, she prompts, “So, which is it? Can’t or won’t?”