Empire of Desire by Rina Kent

“You need to start calling me Gwen or something else for this whole thing to work.”

A cold smile paints his lips and I know I won’t like his next words even before he says them. He’s cruel that way, with absolutely no regard for others’ feelings. “How about kiddo?”

“I’m not a kid.”

“If you say so.”

“Is that what you still see me as? A kid?” I storm from my side of the car to stand in front of him. “Would a kid be able to marry you?”

“It’s a fake marriage.”

“Fake is an illusion, but this is real, tangible, touchable.”

I don’t miss the way his jaw clenches at that word. Touchable. One he made so clear that he doesn’t want to be part of this relationship.

“Step back.”

My cheeks must be hot crimson, because it’s only then that I realize I’m close to him. So close that I taste him on my tongue, so close that his warmth is wrapping around me like a blanket. Or, more accurately, a noose, because it’s suffocating me with each passing second.

Ordinarily, I’d give him back his safe space and go hide in mine, because isn’t that the right thing to do?

However, I also thought that the right thing was Dad being safe until he’s old and gray. But he isn’t, and everything I’ve taken for granted is changing, evolving, and spiraling out of control.

So I don’t follow Nate’s order.

I stand there in the path of his hurricane, under the scrutiny of those dark eyes and in the shadow of his body.

I stay.

I stare.

And I remind myself to breathe.

“Gwyneth, I told you to step back.”

“And I’m obviously refusing to.”

“Did you just say you refuse to?”

“Yeah. Why? Are you scared of something?”

He steps forward and I startle, jumping away so suddenly that my back hits hard metal. It’s the car, I realize. I’m plastered against the door, and I mean glued to it, like it’s my lifeline, because it suddenly feels like it now that he’s close.

Like as close as when I kissed him. When I got on my tiptoes and just went for it. And now, I’m staring at his sinfully-proportioned lips. At how they’re only a breath away because he’s hovering—looming over me and blocking the sun and the air and every natural element.

He’s a god, after all. And gods can totally control the elements and leave me gasping on nonexistent oxygen.

He’s not touching me, but I’m full of those little tingles, those sharp needle-like stings, and I can’t help it. Just like I can’t help the blood that came out after that prick from the glass. It’s natural.

It’s chemical.

It’s how it’s supposed to be.

“Do you truly think that, Gwyneth? That I’m scared?”

“Well, aren’t you?”

“Do I look scared to you?”

I study him then, like really look at him and the strong lines of his face and how lethally handsome he is, because he takes his god image seriously. He’s always groomed to perfection, beautiful to the point it hurts in my non-desensitized heart. Because I didn’t add that word to the negative notebook.

Heart.

But yeah, he definitely doesn’t look scared. I’ve never seen Nate scared or anxious or any of the things that we humans are plagued with. But his face isn’t stuck in that rigid aloof expression either.

There’s a tightness in his body, a tic in his jaw, and a look in his eyes that I don’t recognize. I’ve never seen it before. I’ve never seen that lowering of his lids or the dilating of his pupils.

And it’s a bit scary.

Or maybe a lot scary, because I’m shivering uncontrollably. Is he trying to scare me? Trying to make me out as some sort of a criminal that he has to break down just because I talked back?

“Answer the question, Gwyneth.”

“No.”

“No, what?”

“No, you don’t look scared.”

“Then how do I look?”

Scary. But I don’t say that, because that would mean I can’t hold my own, and I can totally do that. Hold my own. Now, I just need to convince my unreliable brain of that fact.

“I don’t know,” I say instead.

“You don’t, huh?”

I shake my head once.

“Let me enlighten you then. This is what I look like when I’m holding back. When I’m not acting on what I’m thinking and dragging you to a corner where no one will see you flinch or hear you release those small noises you do when you’re out of your element. So you should be the one who’s scared, not me.”

I don’t think I’m breathing anymore.

Otherwise, why am I wheezing and why is the back of my throat so dry that it feels like I’m stuck in the desert?

I swallow.

I inhale deeply.

But it still doesn’t give me my sanity back. The sanity he confiscated with his hot, strong words.

“Why should I be scared?” I can’t help it, okay? I want to know why, because maybe that will give me back the air I lost as collateral damage from being near him.

There’s a bang when he hits the top of the car next to my head, and I jump, my heart doing a strange jolt that freezes me in place.

That and the way he hardens his jaw and darkens his eyes, then directs them at me like daggers.