Rule's Obsession (13 page)

He swooped down and caught her around her midriff and lifted her off her feet. Holding her in midair with one arm, his strength was indisputable as he walked inside her apartment and kicked the door shut behind him.

Chapter Seven

Angie's body tensed up, and when Damian sat her on her feet, she immediately began backing away from him.

It was an amateur mistake. After sleeping with him for so long, she should have known what his reaction to that move would have been. But she wasn't thinking. She was on auto-response, her limbic brain doing the thinking for her, her reflexes taking charge when her fight or flight response had gone into action.

She should have stood her ground and not been leery of having a verbal confrontation with him. That would have given him pause and she might have had a chance to win this battle that suddenly waged between them. But instead, she'd screwed up and he was already tracking her across the room.

She fucked-up even more by continuing to scoot backwards, until her spine was flush against the wall. He stopped six inches away and placed a single hand on the sheetrock above her head and leaned in as he stared her down.

"Where were you headed?" The question was asked softly, in a voice like silk but with an underlying edge of steel he couldn't hide.

She shook her head, refusing to give him an answer.

His burning scrutiny held her in place. "Where were you headed?" he asked again, his cool tone dropping by a tension-filled degree.

She licked her too-dry lips. "Out."

His eyes dropped to her lips before ensnaring her gaze again.
"'Out'
isn't an answer."

"It's the only one you're going to get."

Her voice wasn't belligerent, it was softly spoken, but it was obvious that he took the content of her words as a challenge. His muscles tensed and he gave her a dark, layered look of hostility. "Since you won't give me an answer, I guess that means that instead of leaving, you'd rather stay here and fight with me." His hands reached for her upper arms and held her in a punishing grip. "That means I'm more important than whatever you had planned, if in fact, you had anything planned at all."

His arrogant, condescending words sliced through her and the residual hurt she was feeling dried up as her chest began burning with anger. "Oh,
fuck you,"
she said easily.
Could she kick him in the balls right now? And how hard?
Fury almost choking her, she pulled away with all her might, but he still wouldn't release her. "Let me go, Damian."

"I don't think so, baby." One hand slid to her chin and lifted. "Something's going on with you that I don't care for and I want to know what it is."

Her jaw tightened against his palm. "You want to know what it is?" she repeated, so mad she could barely speak.

He nodded his head, his thumb running over her bottom lip as his eyes lit with a heat she forced herself to ignore.

She clenched her teeth. "You're an asshole."

She could tell her words hit him where it hurt because his thumb immediately pressed against her bottom lip, holding it against her teeth. He gave her a scalding glare and accusation burned from his eyes. "Is this about last night? I thought we'd moved past that."

Moved past it?
Could he really be that dense?
He'd been asleep when she'd come from the shower and gone when she woke this morning; as usual, slinking out sometime in the middle of the night, like they had something to be ashamed of. She was hit with another flare of temper. "You're pretty quick, aren't you?"

His eyes turned to gleaming slits of warning. His hand left her arm and slid into her hair; he held her hostage with his hand gripping her scalp. "I don't care for your tone, sweetheart."

"What are you going to do about it?" She lifted her chin, her expression truculent.

"You're going to find out if you keep up the attitude."

Attitude? Tone?
Her attitude?
She glared at him with burning, reproachful eyes. "You don't like
my tone?
What about yours?
'I don't care for your tone,'"
she mimicked him. "Aren't you trying to scare me into thinking you're going to hurt me or something?"

He looked thunderstruck. "Fuck, no."

"Well, you're obviously threatening me with something--"

Her words were cut off as with a look of pure frustration, his head lowered and his mouth swooped down over hers. He didn't wait for permission; his tongue plunged inside in the semblance of the sex act. He impaled her before thrusting in and out, in a fierce rhythm that pounded her body against the wall. He reached down and encircled her waist with one arm to stabilize her, while he continued to grip her skull with his other hand.

He kissed her repeatedly, a low, guttural groan emerging from his chest as he pushed against her, his erection hard and throbbing against the softer skin of her stomach. The second that Angie began sinking under his erotic spell, she began to fight it.
She couldn't be this easy.
She wouldn't be.

In that moment, like a bolt of lightning, she acknowledged to herself that she wanted
to win.
Douche or not, she liked him, she liked him a lot. Maybe not as in 'marriage-liked', but she needed time to figure out how she felt about him. And if she kept letting him have his way with everything, she'd bore him to tears within another few weeks. She was semi-surprised that he was still this hot and heavy for her. Still, she didn't like where her thoughts were going because she didn't want to play games with him.
But how the hell were you supposed to win if you refused to play the stupid game in the first place?

With that thought, she pulled her mouth from his and twisted her head away. She began to push her hands between them. A punishing sound of protest came from his throat as he pushed his torso against her, pinning her to the wall. His fists dropped between them and pushed her hands away. With quick, methodical movements, he began unfastening the zipper on her jeans.

A streak of panic ran down her spine. Lifting her hands back to his chest, she began pushing against him but it was pointless, he was like an immovable object against her puny efforts as he continued to work on her clothing. With a last ditch effort to save her dignity before she caved and fell back in with him, she employed the word she'd yet to use in their relationship.
"Stop."

His hands fell still between them, and he was motionless for a moment. And then he lifted his head and stared into her eyes.

"Stop," she whispered this time.

A look of tortured pain crossed his features and he began taking in huge gulps of oxygen. Finally, he released her and then slowly stepped away. He turned around and walked across the room, and then he leaned his hands against her dinette table and hung his head, breathing deeply, tension in every line of his body.

As she looked as his rigid back, she realized that this was the most emotion he'd ever shown her. His posture seemed almost vulnerable, and he wasn't storming out as she'd half-expected that he would. Feeling a sharp need to say something to make it better between them, she cleared her throat and offered him a small olive branch. "I was just going out shopping for a while."

He heard her words. She knew he did because his chest inflated with a deep breath and he stood to his full height. He didn't turn around, he just stood staring down at the table as he asked, "Why didn't you just tell me that? Why didn't you just say so? Why'd you put crazy-shit in my head? What's the big fucking deal?"

His back was rigid, and Angie was held motionless, not knowing what to say that wouldn't expose her feelings. It was way too soon and she was too confused to know exactly what she was feeling, anyway. And what kind of crazy shit had he been thinking?
Was he jealous?

When she didn't respond, he ran one hand through his hair and swiped up a sack from her table and turned around. Her nerves took a jolt. Her apartment was always immaculate, and the bag out of place was a discrepancy that had undoubtedly caught his eye. "You've already been shopping," he accused, and Angie felt her breath congeal as she thought of what was in the bag.
It would be so much easier if he didn't open it.
Could she get that lucky?

She felt the blood drain from her face
and son-of-a-bitch
, she couldn't stop herself as she looked down at the bag before lifting her eyes to his. Panic was probably written all over her face. It was more than obvious he noticed her damning reaction.

His jaw clenched, his muscles stiffened, and his mouth shot into an unpleasant twist. Dread settling in her stomach, even though she was guilty of nothing, she felt her legs tremble beneath her as he looked down at the bag in his hand and paused. She had one second to try to stop him, and she stepped forward, preparing to swipe the sack from his hands.

But she was too late. He pulled back and upended the bag, the contents, a single rectangular box of condoms, dropping to the carpeted floor. His gaze stayed on the ground for a few seconds too long, as if trying to compute what he was seeing, and then he kicked the box across the room and stared at her with seething accusation.

She had no idea what his reaction would be, but it wasn't the one she anticipated. She thought he'd yell and rage and threaten or possibly, worse. And she was immensely relieved when he did none of those things. But still, sheer horror bled down her spine as he watched her as if he'd just found out that she'd committed a double-murder in cold blood.

And then he simply turned away and stormed across the room, obviously about to walk out of both the door and her life, forever.

Angie panicked. "They're not mine," she screamed at him.

He halted in his tracks and then slowly turned. The look on his face told its own story; he didn't believe her for a second. "Bullshit."

She shook her head. "They're not."

Scalding fury dripped from his eyes.
"You fucking somebody else?"

Her breath hitched. "No."

"You expect me to believe that? You've been on the pill for what, a couple of months now? We don't use 'em anymore.
Why the fuck would you need condoms?"

The expression on his face was malevolent and it sent a chill through her bloodstream. But she admitted, the box of condoms looked suspicious. Abruptly, she knew she had two choices. She could lose him, or she could tell him the truth. What good would covering for his mother do? The woman was an adult and could do as she pleased. She certainly shouldn't have to answer to her son. If Angie continued to be evasive, nothing good could come from it. He wouldn't believe her, he'd think she was lying, which she was, and there were only two possible outcomes. Either he'd walk out the door and she'd never see him again, or their relationship would become contentious. Horribly so.

She didn't think she could face either outcome right now. She didn't want to lose him this soon; she wasn't ready. She could feel her palms sweating as she made the only mature decision possible. "I can explain, but . . . you're not going to like it."

At the tremor in her voice, he asked again, "Are you fucking someone else?" She shook her head, violently, back and forth. "You planning on fucking someone else?" When she shook her head again, his set features relaxed somewhat, but only minutely.

He walked more fully into the room, leaned back against the table, and crossed his arms over his chest. "Explain."

"They're not mine. I mean . . . I bought them for someone else."

He raised one eyebrow in obvious disbelief, dipped his head, and waited for her to go on.

Her words stalled in her throat as she thought about how pissed he was going to be. Sure, his anger would change, it wouldn't be directed at her in such a catastrophic way, but he'd still be pissed. When she didn't answer, he said, "You expect me to believe that someone in this day and age is embarrassed to buy condoms? Do you have a fifteen year old brother you haven't told me about?" He snarled sarcastically.

"Damian," she tried to soothe. "They're just condoms. It's not a big deal."

"I want a name. I want you to try to convince me you're telling me the truth," he snapped, all patience gone.

She sucked in a breath. "They're for your mother."

His expression turned to one of a boxer in a ring who'd just had his bell rung. He actually shook his head, as if trying to clear it.
"What?"

Instead of answering his question, Angie shook her head and told him how she was feeling. "I feel like I just left your mother out to dry." She took a deep breath. "Like I just threw her under the bus."

"My mother?"

Angie shrugged. "I'm pretty sure that you weren't supposed to find out."

"This is bullshit. You're making it up. You know damn good and well I can't corroborate your story." He turned away before zeroing in on her once again.
"My mother
. You really want to go with that?"

He continued to watch her for a few seconds with a withering stare while Angie remained quiet.

His expression changed to one of indecision, and Angie could tell that he was actually pondering whether it could be true or not. She didn't want to push the truth on him, but it
was
the truth. "I get that she's your mother, but she's a grown woman. Your father has been dead for seven years, and she's finally ready to move on. She's still vital, still vibrant--"