Midnight Ash (A Blushing Death Novel) Read Online Free PDF Page B

him go, not like this. He was still inside me for Christ’s sakes. We couldn’t get in an argument if he was still inside of me. Right? Right.
    “Yeah.” I wouldn’t allow him to hear guilt or pity in my voice. I didn’t regret spending time with either of them and I would not apologize for it. I did regret how it made each of them feel but I couldn’t change that.
    “You have not given yourself to him,” he said in a curious tone, sounding almost like he didn’t believe me.
    I leaned back and evaluated his dark closed-off eyes. His expression had grown cold and he had that business tone to his voice that didn’t belong in a conversation while I was naked. The metaphysical walls we maintained between our emotions came crashing down on his end. It was as if a door had been slammed in my face. The sudden emptiness of not having him in my gut left me disoriented and uneasy.
    “Is this really the time to talk about this?” I snapped. Moment ruined. Thanks . . . Ass.
    He stood and withdrew from me, prying my legs from around his waist. I lowered my feet to the floor with my back straight. My legs weren’t 100 percent yet and in three-inch heels so I wobbled a little.
    He circled the desk with his naked back to me, shutting me out, and stood in front of the fire. His body was a long lean line of tense muscles displayed in soft silky alabaster skin. The light from the flames in the fireplace bounced off his naked body, dancing across his pale flesh.
    Patrick’s muscles were stretched taut across his shoulders as the flames dance in the fireplace, a crackling distraction in the silence filling the room. Even though the fire blazed several feet from me, I was cold. I hugged my middle in an attempt to keep warm and perhaps push away the dark, anxious feeling that twisted my stomach with dread. I leaned against the edge of the desk and watched him in silence.
    “If not now, Dahlia, when?” he snapped, his question sharp like shrapnel. His pain stabbed into my gut like a dull blade and tightened all the muscles in my middle, making me hunch over in unease. His emotions were leaking everywhere, hitting me in sporadic jolts of anguish-filled lightning as they seeped through his psychic shields.
    “Where is this coming from?” I asked, as I tried to breathe through the uneasy sensation in my gut that was making me nauseous. “I won’t apologize for a situation you helped create.” Hiding the slight quiver in my voice, I stood. I solidified the emotional barrier I’d created to keep us separate back into place. I couldn’t rely entirely on Patrick to keep us separate. I needed my own protection.
    “I know he’s there to protect you when I can’t and I’m appreciative. It doesn’t mean I have to like it,” he growled through clenched teeth, filling the room with the sharp chill of his anger.
    I froze.
    “Are you trying to piss me off,” I asked and even I heard the hurt in my voice.
    He didn’t respond. His shoulders slumped and the muscles across his back relaxed as the tension he’d been holding dissipated. But he didn’t look at me.
    I dropped the barrier I held tight between us and let his emotions wash through me. He drove the anger and jealousy to the front, probably hoping that’s all I would see. I was hit with the pain of those emotions first like a slap in the face. Under those were anxiety, and passion, but most of all fear. I wiped the tear from my cheek and shook his emotions off, squaring my shoulders and shaking my hair from my face.
    I stepped up behind him, staring at the perfect symmetry of his back and rested my hand with a light touch on his shoulder. He turned on me, his face was filled with anger and fear that made his dark eyes swirl. I cupped his face in my hands and leaned into him, kissing him hard with everything I had in me. A crush of lips and tongue that made me weak in the knees as he clutched at me in what felt like desperation. He wanted the tranquility I brought his colony,