“You bought half of my funeral home, Jonas.”
“Yes,” he said slowly. “Owning property together is a way humans express commitment to each other, isn’t it? I thought you would be pleased.”
The fact that Jonas appeared perplexed by her anger dulled the edges of her irritation considerably. He genuinely thought she’d be thrilled by his actions. Still, she couldn’t just let his highhandedness go so easily, could she? Not unless she wanted that kind of behavior to become the norm.
“I suppose I’m pleased that you thought of me—”
“I never stop thinking about you,” he rasped, placing a hand on her hip and squeezing. “Ever, Ginny.”
She lost more steam. “I never stop thinking of you, either.”
His brow knit. “Then don’t be cross with me.”
“I don’t want to be, but until very recently, you were planning to rob my memories against my will. I’m shuffled around among bodyguards and…and I have to find out by accident that you’re going to kill yourself. Then today, you buy the funeral home. You have to clue me in or I will feel like I’m standing in the dark.” She brushed their fingers together and he immediately clung, bringing her hand to his mouth and mashing her knuckles to his lips. “More partnership, less prince and subject, Jonas. Please?”
Thoughts churned behind his eyes. “I’ll do my best to discuss certain matters with you. If I feel it’s possible to land on an acceptable compromise.”
“You mean, land on a compromise you like.”
His jaw ticked. “Every decision I make is with the intention of keeping you safe and close to me. I refuse to stop doing that.”
“I’m not asking you to stop, I’m asking you to confide in me. I’m asking to be a part of those decisions.”
“And if you disagree with my judgment?”
“Then we work on a new one together.”
He huffed a mint-laced breath and started to respond with something she almost certainly wasn’t going to like, but his shoulders stiffened.
A slight turn of Jonas’s head and he was face to face with Gordon.
Well. Chin to face. Jonas was at least five inches taller than the collar-tugging ginger.
“H-hi, I’m Gordon,” he said, backing away from Jonas’s intensity.
The lights in the basement sputtered.
With a sense of impending doom, Ginny tried to insert herself between man and vampire, but Jonas surprised her by extending his hand toward Gordon. “Nice to meet you, Gordon. I understand you’re a friend of Ginny’s.”
“Yes.” He released a light laugh. “Well kind of…”
Jonas’s eye twitched. “Kind of?”
Gordon straightened, as if gathering courage. Had he no his sense of self preservation? “We did go out on one date…and I was hoping maybe we would again—”
A popping noise sounded above their heads. Sparks rained down from the ceiling and the radiator behind Ginny’s table started to whistle, shooting off steam in three directions. The emeralds in Jonas’s eyes burst into flames and the ground started to shake.
Murmurs of alarm went up around the church basement.
“Ginny,” Jonas said, sounding as if he was being strangled. “Can I speak with you privately?”
Distantly, Ginny thought she heard Tucker and Roksana laughing like hyenas, but she didn’t dare look to confirm. No, she twined her fingers together with Jonas’s and hustled him twenty yards to the back exit door into the alley, closing it firmly behind them.
Jonas walked straight to the wall opposite the church and ripped two handfuls of bricks out with his bare hands, smashing them to dust at his feet. “Ginny,” he bit off. “Can we compromise on killing him?”
“No.”
“There you have it.” He swiped out an arc of bricks, as easily as one might swat a fly, leaving them scattered in pieces on the ground. “Proof discussions don’t work.”
“I’m not having a discussion about whether or not you can kill someone simply for liking me. We went on one date, before I ever met you,” Ginny said. “Besides, I’m not the first girl you’ve been with.”
He turned to her with an incredulous expression. “You are my feast. Do not concern yourself with breadcrumbs.”
“I don’t. Because I can see it’s pointless up against…”
Jonas stalked closer. “What?”
“What we have.”
He kept coming until he’d backed her up against the wall. “What do we have? I need to hear you say it. Having you angry with me was torture enough, then this man thinks he can come within ten feet of my mate.” He buried his face in her neck, inhaling deeply. Capturing her wrists and pinning them above her head. “You don’t know, love. You don’t understand what happens inside me when there is friction between us. It’s like burning in hell.”
“I don’t like it, either.” Spicy, little shivers raced all over her skin, pooling in the places where their bodies made contact. Chest, belly, thighs, lap. “But I’m happy you asked me to come outside instead of acting on what you wanted to do.”