“—has nothing to do with this and—”

“—forbid you actually get personal with me—”

“—I don’t give a damn about being judged—”

“—and I don’t mean try to have sex with me—”

“—I wasn’t trying to have sex with you—”

“—I didn’t mean at this precise moment. I meant—”

“—and it would have been impossible, anyway, because we’ve been running. I don’t have any bloody idea why we’ve been running,” he said irritably, “but you’re the one who started it and you’re the one that stopped.”

“—like knock down a few walls between us and see what happens. No, you’re such a coward that the only time you can call me by my name is when you’re either pretty sure I’m dying or you think I’m so out of my mind that I won’t notice. Seems like a hell of a wall to erect between yourself and someone you don’t like.”

“It’s not a wall. I merely endeavor to help you keep our boundaries straight. And I didn’t say I didn’t like you. ‘Like’ is such a puerile word. Mediocre people like things. The only question of any significant emotive content is: Can you live without it?”

I knew the answer to that question where he was concerned, and I didn’t like it one bit. “You think I need help understanding where our boundaries are? Do you understand where our boundaries are? Because they seemed pretty damned mysterious and movable to me!”

“You’re the one arguing about the names we call each other.”

“What do you call Fiona? Fio! How charming. Oh, and what about that twit at Casa Blanc the night I met that bizarre man McCabe? Marilyn!”

“I can’t believe you remember her name,” he muttered.

“You called her by her full first name, and you didn’t even like her. But not me. Oh, no. I’m Ms. Lane. In bloody frigging perpetuity.”

“I had no idea you had such a hang-up about your name, Mac,” he snarled.

“Jericho,” I snarled back, and pushed him.

He manacled both my wrists with one hand so I couldn’t hit him again. It infuriated me. I head-butted him.

“I thought you died for me!”

He shoved me against the wall and braced his forearm across my throat so I couldn’t head butt him again. “For fuck’s sake, is that what this is about?”

“You didn’t die. You lied to me. You took a little nap and left me on that cliff thinking I’d killed you!”

He searched my face, dark eyes slitted. “Ah, I see. You thought it meant something that I died for you. Did you dress it up in romance? Compose sonnets memorializing my great sacrifice? Did it make you like me better? Did I have to be dead to get you to see me? Wake the fuck up, Ms. Lane. Dying is overrated. Human sentimentality has twisted it into the ultimate act of love. Biggest load of bullshit in the world. Dying for someone isn’t the hard thing. The man that dies escapes. Plain and simple. Game over. End of pain. Alina was the lucky one. Try living for someone. Through it all—good, bad, thick, thin, joy, suffering. That’s the hard thing.”

Alina was the lucky one. I’d thought that, too, and had been ashamed of myself for thinking it. I punched him so hard, he stumbled on the slick black floor, and as he went down, I felt sudden horror at seeing him stumble. I never wanted to see him stumble, so I grabbed him and we both went down to our knees on the black floors. “Damn you, Jericho!”

“Too late, Rainbow Girl.” He grabbed a fist of my hair. “Somebody beat you to it.” He laughed, and when he opened his mouth over mine, fangs grazed my teeth.

Yes, this was what I needed, what I’d needed since the day I woke up in that basement and left his bed. His tongue in my mouth, his hands on my skin. The burn of his body against mine. I grabbed his head with both hands and ground my mouth against his. I tasted my own blood from a nick on his teeth. I didn’t care. I couldn’t get close enough. I needed rough, hard, fast sex, followed by hours and hours of slow and intimately thorough fucking. I needed weeks in bed with him. Maybe if I had willing, cognizant sex with him long enough, I’d get over him already.

Somehow I doubted that.

He hissed. “Fucking fairy in your mouth. You have me in your mouth, you don’t get anybody else. Or you don’t get me.” He sucked on my tongue, hard, and I could feel V’lane’s name unraveling from the center of it. He spat it out like an unfastened piercing. I didn’t care. There hadn’t been enough room in my mouth for them both anyway. I pressed into his body, rubbing desperately against him. How long had it been since I’d had him inside me? Too long. I grabbed the sides of his shirt and ripped, sent buttons flying. I needed skin to skin.