Page 85 of Cursed
“Absolutely not.” I kissed the top of her sun-warmed hair. “If you trust me, that is.”
Tipping her face to the sky, she gazed at a flock of geese flying south.
A dimple formed in her cheek. “Idotrust you. Call it intuition or whatever, but you make me comfortable. Which should be ridiculous, given our circumstances.”
“Is comfort the only emotion you feel when we’re together?” I wanted to hear her say she was in love with me. Earlier, at the church, she’d mentioned she’d started to fall for me, and I desperately needed to know for sure.
Maybe it was selfish on my part, but I yearned...possibly even prayed...to hear a definitive answer from her lips.
“Hmm.” Strolling ahead, she left my side to stand under a canopied bench overlooking the elephant enclosure. She sat then patted the empty wooden slats next to her thigh. “I’m not sure comfort is an emotion, is it?”
Sitting down, I breathed through the pain writhing in my chest.I’d really hoped...what? That she’d like me? That she’d trulyloveme?I’d been a fool. No one could love my darkness, my sins. Sour bile crept up the back of my throat, and I fought an urge to blink away.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I waved a dismissive hand in the air, clenching my jaw.
“No, you’re not.” She reached out, but I jerked away, not wanting her touch anywhere near me. “Cain, are you mad at me?”
“Why would I be mad?” My words sounded too quick, too angry.
She placed her fingers on the top of my denim-clad thigh. “When I’m with you, I feel a lot of things.”
I kept my face turned toward the animals but watched her from my periphery. “You do?”
A cute giggle answered. “Have you ever met someone and, in a split second, felt you’d known them your entire life, and everything in your existence had been leading up to that precise moment, as if no matter what choices you made in the past, that one special person would never judge or make you feel lesser in their eyes?”
Pulling my focus from the lumbering pachyderms, I met her gaze head-on. “Can’t say I have.” Well, not until I’d met her.
She bowed her head and traced an invisible circle on my leg with her pink-painted fingernail. “I have.”
A flicker of jealousy stirred in my veins. “Oh?” Careful and quiet, I kept my question even, afraid she’d sense my furious envy.
“Yep.” Her mahogany eyes met mine. “The day I met you, and I don’t mean when you stole my necklace, jerk.” She playfully shoved at my chest. “I mean the first time, in the cave, when you wanted to kill me.”
The relief knowing she spoke of me would’ve dropped me to my knees if I hadn’t already been sitting. “I-I’m sorry.” Lifting her palm, I ran an index finger across the creases. “You stir up emotions in me I’ve not felt before. They’re confusing, yet I find the one standing out above the others is guilt for what I’ve done.”
“Well,” she said, curling her fingers over mine and staring up into my face, “you’re only forgiven if you do something completely silly and immature with me.”
I pulled her nearer and rested my forehead against hers.Wish I could remove these stupid sunglasses.But with all the young children and happy families milling about, I wouldn’t chance someone accidentally seeing my mark.
Instead, I contented myself with placing a tender kiss on her lips. “Name your price, then, Precious.”
She looped her arms over my shoulders. “Great. Follow me.” Her eyes sparked with excitement.
“Gladly.”And isn’t that the crux of it all?I’d follow her wherever she led, even if it meant my doom.
A dark chuckle rumbled in my head, and I crammed the sound back into the recesses of my mind.
Phoebe was becoming my Heaven, and I no longer knew which price I wanted to pay for entry: vengeance or love.
