Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [110]
“I haven’t heard you complain.”
Her breath caught, a tiny gasp snagging in her throat as she gaped at him, clearly appalled and having every right to be. Her expression fell, then hardened into something as brittle as glass. “Fuck you.”
Her contempt for him in that moment was understandable, but that didn’t make it any easier to swallow. He would never take such a verbal beating from anyone. Before now, no one had ever had the nerve to try him. Lucan, the aloof one, the stone-cold killer who tolerated weakness in no form whatsoever—least of all in himself.
For all the conditioning and discipline he had mastered in his centuries of living, here he stood, being torn wide open by the only woman he had been foolish enough to let get close to him. And he cared for her, too, far more than he should. Which made hurting her now seem all the more repugnant, regardless of the fact that last night made it clear to him that it was necessary he push her away. It was unavoidable, and he would only make it worse by trying to pretend she would ever fit into his way of life.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Gabrielle, and I know that I will.”
“What do you think you’re doing right now?” she whispered, a slight hitch in her voice. “You know, I believed you. God, I actually believed every lie you’ve fed me. Even that bullshit about wanting to help me find my true destiny. I really thought you cared.”
Lucan felt helpless, the coldest kind of bastard for letting things get so out of hand with her. He strode over to a bureau, took out a fresh shirt and put it on. Heading for the door that led to the hallway outside his private apartments, he paused to look back at Gabrielle.
He wanted so badly to reach out to her, to try to make things better somehow, but he knew that would be a mistake. One touch and he would have her in his arms again.
Then he might not be able to let her go.
He opened the door, about to walk out.
“You have found your destiny, Gabrielle. Just like I said you would. I never told you it would be with me.”
CHAPTER
Twenty-four
Lucan’s words—all the astonishing things he’d told her—were ringing in Gabrielle’s ears as she came out from under the steaming water in his bathroom shower. She cut the tap and toweled off, wishing the hot water could have melted away some of the hurt and confusion she felt. There was so much to deal with, not the least of which was that Lucan had no intention of being with her.
She tried to tell herself he hadn’t made any promises to begin with, but that only made her feel like a bigger fool. He had never asked her to put her heart under his boot heels; she’d done that all on her own.
Leaning in toward the mirror that ran the entire width of the bathroom suite, Gabrielle moved her hair back to have a closer look at the crimson-colored birthmark below her left ear. Or rather, the Breedmate mark, she corrected herself, peering at the little teardrop that appeared to be falling into the bowl of a crescent moon.
By some twisted sort of irony, she was connected to Lucan’s world by the tiny mark on her neck, and yet, it was also the very thing preventing her from being with him.
Maybe she was a complication he didn’t want or need, but it wasn’t like meeting him had made life a bowl of cherries for her, either.
Thanks to Lucan, she was involved in a bloody underworld war that made the worst inner city gangbangers look like playground bullies. She had all but abandoned one of the sweetest condos in Beacon Hill and would lose it altogether if she didn’t get back and get to work so she could pay her bills. Her friends had no idea where she was, and telling them now would probably only put them in danger of losing their lives.
To top it all off, she was half in love with the darkest, deadliest, most emotionally closed-off man she’d ever known.
Who just so happened