How had I let this happen? I had so wanted to be strong, but any fortitude I possessed was useless where Talon Steel was concerned. I would always surrender to him. My only escape would be to leave Colorado altogether and get as far away from him as I could.
But I wouldn’t do that. Colorado was my home. I’d lived here all my life. I could go back to Denver, but he would find me.
I wanted him to find me.
I love you. Those words sat on the edge of my lips, hungering to spew forth. I clamped my mouth shut. He wasn’t ready to hear those words.
And I wasn’t ready to say them.
He pulled away from the kiss and gazed into my eyes, his own burning black. I waited for him to speak, but he did not.
“Talon.”
He arched his eyebrows.
“That shouldn’t have happened.”
I expected him to agree with me. He always agreed with me about that. Had always been the one to say he would never fall in love with me, that this would not happen again.
But instead, he said, “That needed to happen, Jade.”
I had no idea what he meant, and asking him to explain it would do no good. Talon didn’t explain things.
“I’m glad it happened,” I said, my voice low.
His dark eyes smoldered. “I’m glad you came back.”
My eyebrows shot up. Had I heard him correctly? “You are? You kicked me out, remember?”
“I was wrong to do that.”
“You were?”
“Yes. You’re Marj’s best friend. She wants you here. She needs you here.”
My heart fell. The barriers had risen once more. He was glad I was back for Marj’s sake, not his own.
I knew better than to try to get through to Talon when he was walled off. I didn’t believe him for a minute, but pressuring him would do no good. When the blockade went up, it became impenetrable.
“Well, I didn’t want to leave Marj either.” I looked away. I couldn’t stare into his beautiful eyes when he was barricaded. It was too painful, like a blade slicing my heart in two.
“Marj would like you to come back and stay at the house,” he said.
I blew out a breath of air. “As much as I love it at your house, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Marj is going to help me find an apartment. In fact, she was supposed to look today, but I haven’t heard from her yet.”
“She was pretty busy today helping Joe. His secretary called in sick, so he asked her to fill in. He had a bunch of filing that had to be done with the Secretary of State.”
That explained why she hadn’t called yet. “No problem. I’ll scan the paper tomorrow morning and maybe look at some places over my lunch hour.”
“I wish you’d come back to the house.”
I shook my head. “Believe me, I thought about it. I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Sometimes I couldn’t believe the things that came out of his mouth. “Because you kicked me out in no uncertain terms three short days ago.”
He stood, gathering his boxers and jeans and putting them on quickly. His gorgeous torso was still bare, still glistening with perspiration from our encounter. He was so beautiful. When I looked at him, when I saw through his invisible walls, I wanted nothing more than to hold him, to take all this pain away. Before I could do that, though, I needed to know what the pain was and why he was so closed off from everyone. I didn’t know how to find that out. Marj didn’t know, and if Jonah and Ryan did, they certainly weren’t talking.