Page 57 of Iron Cross

But I couldn’t stop myself now.

I looked up, expecting him to look irritated or annoyed with me in some way. But he wasn’t. He just looked sad.

Probably sorry for me.

I wiped at the tears on my cheek, smearing my mascara, until I just felt like a mess.

“I don’t want you to cry, Anna,” he said, slowly. “I’m sorry I asked.”

And he looked genuinely remorseful.

“It’s okay. I guess you should know what you’re signing up for.” I bit my lips, sucking them between my teeth as if I could take the words back. Then I looked down at the ground, embarrassed for a whole different reason.

I watched as his boots stepped closer to me. My bare feet looked tiny in front of his massive shoes.

He placed his index finger under my chin, lifted my face to his.

“I’ll sign up for it again and again,” he whispered.

The heat in his gaze made me melt. He wasn’t threatening or demanding. He was… testing.

He was feeling the connection between us, as he leaned down towards me. He moved by fractions of millimeters. Slow, his eyes assessing, looking for any sign of protest. And I felt it. The electricity crackling between us.

I parted my lips, feeling the tilt of my lips, as Ialmostsmiled. Almost.

I longed to have his lips on mine. To fall into bed with the satisfaction of sex, and primal urges. Tofeellike myself again. To be cherished, as I had been. To regain even a fraction of the thing that had made me fall into matrimony without a second thought.

I could feel his breath over my skin. What did he taste like? How would it feel to have his skin against mine? To satisfy myself on his body?

He smelled like smoke and comfort, mixed with the thickness of flannel and wool. Of beard gel, pomade, and…it was all wrong!

That was enough to snap me from it. I jolted away, creating space between us.

A fresh batch of tears came. I let out a small wail, as the patheticness of me came to the surface, and I pulled at the shorn locks of hair that I’d cut myself in an attempt to change who I was. To become someone else. To be unrecognizable.

I covered my mouth to silence the sorrow that wanted to come out of my mouth. The pathetic blubbering that made me want to fall to my knees and cry out to the heavens.

“I can’t,” I whispered, after I swallowed the lump in my throat.

“What happened?” he asked, his eyes afraid, as if he had done something wrong. But he hadn’t.

“Nothing!” I whimpered.

I turned away from him, because I couldn’t stand the shame I felt. Like I was an adulterer. Like I was a cheater. As though I had defied fate and the gods by even thinking about being with another man.

“Anna…” he said, his voice so low and pained that it made me want to shatter.

But I had to be strong. He deserved more of an explanation.Hehadn’t made me cry.

It was Eoghan. It was all Eoghan. Even from miles away, even when he probably warmed his bed with all the women who had wanted to take my place, it didn’t fucking matter.

He had me in a chokehold that would never, ever, go away.

“It’s not you,” I said as I turned around, feeling my sobs leaking through. “It’s me. It’s… it’s my fault. I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t need to be sorry.” He reached out to me with open hands, as if he would cup my face, and I wanted him to touch me. I wanted to lean into his hands and take comfort from him. But I stepped away.

I didn’t do it because I wanted to. I didn’t even do it of my own accord.

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