Read Permanent Marker for Free Online

fact that he shifted closer again as she rose, moving with the intent of a lion tracking a zebra. “Maybe your care does need to be my concern.”
    She cocked a brow. “And maybe I just need to get out of here.”
    It was intended as her parting shot. And yeah, she meant it. This coincidence—seeing him again, sweaty and prowling and volatile—it was never supposed to happen, to mix with her like this, when she was punchy and in pain. And not the pain of her leg either. It was the torment of her psyche, taunting her every minute as the messed-up thing it was, now that he’d come along, pinned her to a wall, and all but ordered her to hand it over to him. So he could heal it, at that! And damn him, making her believe, just for a few minutes, he probably could. Fool. The man had made his name in the senate for his ambition, tenacity, and big plans, but her rat’s nest of self-esteem was beyond even his magical reach.
    It really was time to go.
    She pivoted and headed for the door.
    “Damn it, Rose!” His bellow echoed through the room. “Why are you so afraid of me?”
    She stopped and spun back on him. She shouldn’t have, but she did. He didn’t get it, did he? “And why do you keep pushing me ?”
    He’d done the stealthy-lion thing again. He was just a foot away, arms curled at forty-five-degree angles, veins standing out against the meat of his muscles. Again that damn invisible-tether look. Again seeming like he barely held back from strangling her.
    “Because I see what you don’t.” His lips barely moved with the words. His gaze made all the motion, urgently raking her face. “Because, damn it, you’re worth so much more than you see, than you allow yourself to be given, than what you believe—”
    “Don’t.” It spilled from her, hot and humiliating as her tears. “Stop it! Don’t you dare make me go there! I’ve been there already, Senator, remember? And before Owen Dearborn, I’d been there a few thousand other times too.” A bitter laugh broke free. “Mother always phrased it best. ‘It’s best you stop reaching for the fruit on the high branches, Rosalind. Your arms aren’t long enough.’ Well, I now know what fruit is appropriate for me. And it’s fine. I’m fine.”
    “And you’re wrong.”
    Just three words. But he stamped them with the same ferocious force that overcame his whole body as he stepped and grabbed her by the elbows. “You’re wrong, Rose. She’s wrong.”
    He gripped her much harder than he had that afternoon. The pressure, along with the heat flowing off him like flares from the sun, should’ve sent alarms through her. A normal woman would’ve evaluated the situation and been at least a little scared.
    But Rose was wet. Aching. Her lips parted as her body hit the Override button on her brain, tingling in greeting to his nearness. Her whole body throbbed in need for his power. Her sex pulsed, her heart fluttered, her very skin came alive with craving…
    More.
    “What are you going to do?” Her dry rasp swirled through the inches of air between them. “Pin me to a wall again until I’m brainwashed to your will?”
    His answering smile was instant but slow. Knowing but vigilant. And in the three seconds he took to make it, everything changed between them. There was a shift, like the moon pulling rank and calling the tide back out to sea, where it could break free without the limits of the shore.
    This was ridiculous. Have you really just compared the man to the sun and the moon at once? He’s forbidden fruit. Don’t play this high, Rose. You’re going to fall and get hurt!
    “No,” he finally said, dipping the molten heat of his stare along the length of her body. “We’ve done the wall already, pet. And it clearly didn’t make a difference in your mindset.”
    He tugged her closer to him. Her breath caught. Her head spun. “I…I hadn’t thought that was the…intention.”
    The last syllable was nothing but a sigh, a breath that mingled with