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Rowan was, aside from this current moment, an exceptionally sane man. Therefore, there was absolutely no way he could be in love with me.
So, him threatening murder did not make sense.
Not that anyone threatening murder ever actually made sense.
But he meant it. Staring at him, into those tempestuous eyes, I knew he was seriously going to end the life of the man who’d threatened me.
“Don’t,” I whispered, my previously sharp tone completely gone.
I grabbed a hold of Rowan’s large, strong hand. It made me feel warm. Safe. Tethered to the earth.
“Please do not kill a man for me,” I asked, begging him with my eyes.
“He would’ve hurt you if we hadn’t driven past when we did,” he ground out. “He was already hurting that girl.”
“He was,” I agreed, my blood still boiling with that knowledge. “But she has brothers who will make sure she’s never hurt again. And then there’s the possibility of Ronnie turning up dead, and those boys being accused of his murder.” Half of me was joking, or at least hoping this was some kind of hypothetical conversation. But the other half was being dead serious—pardon the pun—knowing that I was speaking to another version of the man I was quickly—far too quickly—falling in love with.
Now that I was looking at him closer, without my red veil of rage, touching him, I could see just how tense he was. Felt the tremble of rage in his hands.
He had transformed into the dangerous—deadly—man I knew he could be. Who, at some point before I’d known him, he’d had to be to survive.
I had no idea how to deal with truly dangerous men. No idea how to bring him back from the brink. I just knew I needed to.
So, I worked on instinct. I went up on my tiptoes so I could clutch his face, bringing it downward to me, our lips almost brushing.
“Will you take me home?” I asked softly, looking into those savage eyes of his.
He didn’t respond, just kept staring, his hands gripping my hips tightly.
I didn’t back down, though I felt uncertain, unsure if I was doing the right thing.
“Please?” I whispered, brushing my lips across his.
Then he responded.
Enthusiastically.
I’d intended to give him a delicate kiss, to coax him back to the man who didn’t need to use violence to avenge his woman.
He was not that man.
He was now the man who needed to claim his woman in a brutal kiss in the parking lot.
My back slammed against the car before I knew what was going on, Rowan’s hands on my ass now, kissing me fiercely.
To be fair, I kissed him back just as fiercely, realizing that I had some adrenaline of my own spiking in my body.
“I’m takin’ you home,” Rowan growled against my mouth right when I was about to wrap my legs around his hips and put us both in danger of getting arrested for indecent exposure.
“Yeah,” I agreed, trying to catch my breath.
He didn’t let go of me right away, just kept me there, pressed against the car, pressed into him, my chest rising and falling rapidly.
“Scares me, prospect of you gettin’ hurt,” he murmured, his hand brushing against the still fading bruise on my eye.
It felt surreal, that a mark still existed on my body from a time when Rowan and I weren’t this. That this relationship—if that’s what this was—had yet to outlast a bruise on my skin.
“I sometimes go to a place I’m not proud of,” he continued, eyes soft now. “Become a man you shouldn’t see. One who doesn’t deserve a woman like you.”
He was punishing himself now. I could see that. Feel it.
There were a bunch of things I could’ve said to that. Like the fact that I wanted to see all of him, even the versions of himself he wasn’t proud of. That a dark and slightly shameful part of me was turned on by this slightly unhinged, dangerous man who’d lost control at the thought of me getting hurt.
But those things weren’t appropriate conversations to have in a parking lot. Or in a relationship that had yet to outlast a bruise on my face.
“Take me home,” I requested instead.
He stared at me a beat longer, before he pressed his lips against mine and murmured, “okay, cupcake.”
Chapter
Eleven
Recipe: Pistachio Pinwheels
From ‘Dessert Person’
A romantic dinner was out of the question after the events of that afternoon.
The energy was not the kind I wanted following us on our first date. Especially considering we’d had our first fight today. Which was incredibly unbelievable, me yelling at Rowan like we were some kind of couple. Him declaring he was going to kill a man for me like we were in some kind of movie or novel.
We’d driven home in silence. You couldn’t exactly say that things were tense, but there was something between us that didn’t have any right to be there. It added another intimate layer to a relationship that wasn’t really a relationship.
