Free Resisting Ruby Rose (The Ruby Rose Series) by Jessie Humphries

useless. I watched the spot in tense silence for what seemed like hours.
    “I’m sorry,” Liam said eventually, so quietly that I couldn’t be sure I’d actually heard him right.
    I lowered the rifle and turned to him, but he wasn’t even looking at me. He was still glaring out into the night with a creased brow and pale moonlit eyes.
    “I shouldn’t have gone after LeMarq without you.” There was sincere regret in his voice.
    What? No throwing of furniture? No screaming matches? No days-long silent treatment? No defensive explanations about how things weren’t what they might have seemed with Quinn? This was not how the Roses resolved things—with prompt apologies. I had no idea what to do. Logic told me to apologize in return. To express my gratitude for such a mature reaction to a very challenging set of issues. Maybe even to reach out and reassure him that I still adored him. But instead, I kept hold of my rifle.
    Suddenly, his hands were on my face and his body was against mine, completely disregarding the dangerous weapon now wedged between us.
    “Liam,” I whispered, forcing enough space to place the shotgun on the windowsill and transfer my clutch from the weapon to his arms. “Do you have a death wish?”
    “Maybe I do,” he said, moving one hand to my hip to draw me closer, and the other to the back of my neck. His fingers traced through my tangled hair, which didn’t exactly hurt, but somehow caused my eyes to water. Or at least that’s what I told myself as we stared at each other through the darkness.
    When his lips touched mine, no tenderness remained. No innocence. No tingling anticipation. No sweet promises. Instead it was all desperation. All desire. All rage. All burning fire. Scorching me with the way he pressed his mouth to mine and clasped my body against his.
    My eyes shut as my body responded to his. His grasp too tight, his breath too ragge d . . . but he needed me. And I needed him, too. W e’d been through so much, and now we were on the precipice of so much more.
    “I’m sorry, too,” I finally said, breathy and lightheaded from the way both his hands were now moving through my hair. “For too many things to even lis t . . . ”
    His lips silenced me again. Fierce and warm, pushing me backward into the wall. His urgency consumed me—so many emotions pulsing between his body and mine. Clenching his shaggy hair in my hands, I let the passion free-fall. If only for a few moments, no one and nothing else mattered. Adversaries, misunderstandings, and murderers meant nothing. In this moment alone, we belonged together, wrapped in each other’s embrace. Except when Liam’s lips left mine to travel down my neck, and his hands crushed my body against the wall a little more roughly than he probably intended, another boy was suddenly on my mind. Quinn. I stiffened.
    “Last night was supposed to be so different,” Liam said, perhaps feeling the change. “I wanted to tell you something. I was about to tell you, but then yo u . . . ” Liam stopped to find the right words, but he didn’t have to.
    “I know,” I said, licking my lips and tasting him on me. “I shouldn’t have said anything about seeing LeMarq, and maybe you wouldn’t have had t o . . . ”
    Neither of us were doing very well at articulation. Finishing these difficult sentences could only open more wounds when we were right in the middle of closing them.
    “I need to tell you what I wanted to say last night.” Liam held my face in his hands again, a gentleness returning to his touch.
    “OK.”
    “I want to tell you that there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. That you have changed my life. In a good way. Even after last night, I still believe that. Whatever happens tonight or tomorrow, I want you to know that I love you, Ruby Rose.”
    I’d known it was coming. I definitely heard it approaching in the distance and saw it speeding toward me like an unstoppable freight train. But it still knocked me