He grabbed me by the elbows, yanking me up on my toes. “How am I supposed to keep you safe when you do something as stupid as go talk to the Morellis?”
The moonlight caught him across the face, and I’d never seen him so angry.
“Keep me safe?” I laughed, which was probably risky considering his anger. But I was beyond giving a shit. Those words didn’t even make sense coming from him.
“What did you talk to Eden Morelli about?” he asked.
“How do you even know I did?”
“There are a thousand wires crisscrossing between the Morellis and the Constantines, and you tripped half of them reaching out to Eden. Who, just to be clear, is not to be taken lightly. She’s as bad as they get. Feral, like. Vicious.”
“And what are you?”
“Oh, Princess, I think I’ve been very good to you.” The low purr of his voice thrummed between us. Making the memory of his hands between my legs tangible and real.
It was time for this to be over. I pushed at his chest, but he didn’t budge. If anything, he pulled me closer. My toes barely touching the floor. But I didn’t wince. Or beg. I gave him nothing.
“Am I hurting you?” he breathed.
“You know you are.”
“This is nothing compared to what could be done to you.”
“You think I don’t know?” I spat at him. “You think there’s one inch of pain you can show me that I don’t know by heart?”
His eyes were dark in the shadows, all the color leached from his body. He was black and white and grey. But when he smiled, he gleamed.
“There you are,” he said. God, this man. He was only happy when I was spitting at him.
“What do you want?” I asked. “What do I need to do to get you out of here?”
The grandfather clock in the hallway clicked forward a minute, so loud in the quiet between us.
“What would you do?” His voice was soft.
“Not what you’re thinking.”
“You don’t have the slightest idea what I’m thinking.”
I rolled my eyes at him. Something that once got me smacked so hard I had to go to the dentist. “Trust me, Ronan. You’re not as original as you think you are.”
That made him tip back his head and howl with laughter, and then he stepped away, slowly letting go of my body which I let sag against the wall while I caught my breath. Pretending to be brave. Strong. It took a lot of effort. Far more effort than cowering and hiding. But I was done cowering and hiding.
He pulled a chair that usually sat beside the dresser forward to sit directly across from me. “What are you doing?”
“Sitting down. You’re going to answer a few questions for me.”
“I’m not going to do shit for you.”
“Swear to god, Poppy. You’re making this harder than you need to.”
“Good.”
In the shadows I watched him look up at the ceiling, a hard sigh. A throbbing heartbeat in his throat. “You called the fucking Morellis,” he said. “If you’re foolish enough to think that nothing bad was going to come of it, you’re wrong. I’m here. I’m the bad that comes of it, Poppy. You’ll be answering some questions.”
“Fine,” I said. Because he wasn’t wrong. The only place for me to sit was the bed, and that wasn’t going to happen. So, I stayed on my feet but didn’t lean against the wall. I was getting tiny little points in tiny little ways. “Ask your questions.”
“Why did you go to the Morellis?”