Page 70 of Cursed Lifeline

“No,” he demands, taking a step forward.

I take one back and realize my mistake almost too late as the edge of my heels graces the lip of the platform. Before I can blink, Felix reaches out, wraps his arm around my waist, and pulls me close. I suck in a shaky breath, place my trembling palm against his chest, and chance a glance up into his eyes, “Just Felix, Miss Martin. It would honor me more than you know to hear my name fall from your lips.”

Someone opens the door behind us and Felix releases me quickly. The intruder gives us a curt nod before he shuffles hastily past and into the other car. When he’s gone, Felix grabs my suitcase and raises his arm for me to take again. It’s a gesture I don’t hesitate to accept this time and link my arm eagerly through his. He opens the door the other man just walked through and guides me to my room.

I blush as his large palm falls to the small of my back and he leads me down the tiny hallway. “Very well, then you may call me Esmerelda.” I glance back at him and his eyes fill with yearning that awakens a salacious urge inside me. “Esme, if we’re to be friends, and I do hope we will be friends.”

He gives me a small smile and nods, never taking his eyes off mine. When we reach a door toward the end of the hallway, he opens it for me, hands me my belongings, and gestures that I should go through first. I do as he silently asks, and as I pass, my body hums with delirious desire, which builds into an anxious need to be closer to him.

“You still haven’t called me by name, Esmerelda?”

The way my name falls from his lips causes a flutter of tender memories to mind. I stop suddenly, and glance back his way startled. But the memory that was so close to my grasp eludes me and falls back into the deathly shadows of my thoughts.

His eyes glow a brighter shade of purple and I’m quickly mesmerized by them.

“Is everything alright?” he asks.

“The way you say my name,” I whisper as I come to a stop in the middle of the tiny roomette, set down my suitcase, and turn his way. His brow furrows. His tempting mouth grins as if he’s hiding something.

“I’m sorry,” I shake my head with a small laugh. “It’s just...”

I trail off as the ghost of a smile deepens across his sinful lips. I sense, like Caelum, it’s as if he holds a secret he’s desperate for me to discover.

The truth is, I can’t put into words the way it makes me feel to hear my name fall from his lips or what the memory of his voice does to me. So instead, I shake my head, clear my throat, and try to also clear my thoughts the best I can.

“Where are you traveling to?” he asks.

“My travels take me to Long Island.”

“Do you have family in Long Island?”

“Not exactly,” I stammer quickly, as my heart worries for the first time since I ran off in the early morning hours at just what Aunt Camille will think when she finds my room empty except for the note I left for her.

Felix waits for me to explain further, but I don’t.

“What are your dining plans for our journey, Esme?” Felix asks after a few moments of slightly awkward silence has passed.

“Dining plans?” I feign innocence as if I don’t know what he’s getting at. “Well, if your eagerness to show me to my quarters is any indication, Mr. Caldwell, I won’t be dining anytime soon on our journey.”

He grins. “I yearn to learn more about your travels and you, Esmerelda,” Felix confidently holds my eye as he comes a step closer but doesn’t cross the threshold into my room. “It would please me more than you know if you’d agree to have dinner with me this evening in my cabin?”

“I prefer to keep my evening plans open, Mr. Caldwell,” I tease when in actuality, I’m denying him because I need freedom from this growing feeling between us so I can hopefully decipher if it’s wrong or right to feel the way I do so suddenly, so effortlessly for a man I’ve just met. He smiles and doesn’t push the matter further as he stands on the other side of the doorway. “After dinner though, I sometimes like to unwind with a game of cards.”

“As do I,” he grins but keeps his space.

He gives me a wink, and I don’t know if it’s the flirtation or the way his words jolt a recollection of a past life, but the lack of air in the room is suddenly stifling. His brow raises. A grin pulls across his handsome face.

“Are you going to invite me in, Esme?”

Am I? I don’t know. My head warns I shouldn’t, but my heart yearns to be closer to him.

“Then again,” he frowns, “maybe forget what I said. I don’t want to taint your reputation with the rumor of a gentleman in your room before our journey has begun.”

Flustered by the implications of his comment, I find myself responding to what my soul craves and say, “Please enter, Felix.”

A look of relief flashes across his features. Unable to meet his stare, I turn and walk further into the room just as he steps over the threshold. When he does, it’s as if all the oxygen in the room is suddenly sucked out and replaced with his overwhelming presence.

I reach out to steady myself by grabbing ahold of the nearest wall. I pull at the front of my dress, attempting to loosen the tight confines of my bra underneath, then fan my flushed face, but it’s no use. Suddenly, his presence is at my back. He leans forward, crowding me in, pressing my breasts up against the wall. The firmness of him, his strength, his control, it causes my knees to buckle. Felix’s arm wraps around my waist and holds me upright.

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