Page 116 of A Heart So Haunted
“Don’t argue with me, Hadrian,” I cut in, but my voice was too high, too thin.
“I’m not. I’m trying to discuss this with you because I care.”
“But this is what you wanted,” I said, persistent. “This is what we agreed to. Now you can just—”
“—you know little of what I want—”
“—leave, just like everyone else.”
There. I’d said it. The words hung between us like a dead corpse on a hook, bleeding and fresh and rank. It felt like I’d stripped open two halves of my chest and let him look. Like I should have been the one with the bleeding heart and not him.
“Don’t say that,” he murmured. “I’m not leaving.”
“Aren’t you? That’s what we agreed on. We fix this for you—we break whatever is holding you here, and that’s it.”
“That’s not it, we don’t even know if my teeth are the answer,” he urged. “Why are you putting me in the same box as everyone else? Why haven’t you asked me what I want?”
I stood from the couch, but our faces were already so close, and I couldn’t help it, I grabbed his face in my hands and I wanted to scream. “Because.”
“Becausewhy,” he snarled, that gritty, earthy hint seeping into his words.
A cold sweat bloomed along my brow. A sick sense of dread enveloped me, hugged me, squeezed. If I didn’t say it now, I didn’t think I ever would.
“Because I care what you think,” I said. “And I want to help you.”Tell me how we need to do it. Tell me you don’t feel this.
Tell me you want to leave.
Gray. All I saw was gray. Wilted, rainy, storming gray, with a flash of yellow lightening.
“You think that’s it? All of this, done? Is that how you feel about it?” His voice turned to a growl.
“It’s all you’ve wanted.”
“It’s all youthinkI’ve wanted.”
“Then tell me what you want, Hadrian,” I blurted.
He straightened, but he looked down at me, our bodies so close, his skin near feverish. Every part of me wanted to slip around, to walk away first, to settle it. To let him go. But my heels remained locked in place, the pressure in the room lapping higher, higher until it hit my elbows.
“I—you are not selling the house.”
“That’s not what I asked—”
“I want—this.”
I flinched like he’d hit me.
He chewed the inside of his cheek. “For a little while. Here, with you. Just … don’t search for them. Wait.” He raked his fingersthrough his hair, sending streaks of blond in all directions. He didn’t look nervous or unkempt. Somehow, even his uncertainty looked steady.
My question came out reedy. “Why?”
His eyes shuttered. This time, when he leaned in, I didn’t sit back on the couch arm. His open shirt waved, the muscle in his chest flickered like he was straining or unsure. He captured my mouth with a certainty, an urgency, both hands grabbing either side of my face and holding me there. A groan slipped from his chest, and he was everywhere. We were everywhere.
He pulled back just enough for his lips to whisper against mine, and said, “Because I don’t want to let you go ye—”
The front door opened. “Landry!”
It happened so quick the room spun.
