Page 42 of When Bones Whisper
“Exactly,” she said breathlessly, trapped under his widening stare. “Although she stopped dancing long before her death.”
“Why?”
“The Eringhorn family. She was engaged to one of them and he would cane her legs when she missed a step. Eventually, my mother made up a lie to get her out of the engagement after they found out he had gotten one of his maids pregnant, but that entire family made it their mission to destroy our lives.”
“People are cruel.”
Charlotte’s lips tilted downward. “I wish I could blame them for my lack of humor.”
“You are grieving,” he said, tilting her chin so she would look at him, his thumb skimming her jaw. “It is okay to feel solemn.”
“That is the problem. I don’t feel sad all the time,” she admitted for the first time since her sister’s death. “I get moments where I don’t feel like my entire world is crumbling, and I’m justme again. Then I feel guilty, because I shouldn’t be happy while she’s…”
“I understand,” he said in a low grumble. “When we lose someone, it is not just them we mourn. So many things die along with them. If you’re alive for long enough, and lose enough people, you will eventually stop enjoying anything.”
Her heart rate picked up, thrumming in her ears so much that she could barely hear the piano. “Is that what happened to you?”
“For a time.” He paused and inhaled sharply. “Take it from a master of suppressing happiness out of solidarity. It is not what anyone who loved you would have wanted.”
There was something else in her chest that kept gnawing at her every time she came close to enjoying anything. With a slow exhale, she nodded and said, “Whenever I feel happy, I feel guilty. As if I’m living a life stolen from Alice. I just can’t understand why I am here and not her,” she admitted, unsure why she was suddenly confiding things she kept hidden to a vampire, but she also knew that if she had any chance of surviving she needed to nurture that shred of humanity.
“There is no answer to that,” he said. “People die, and sometimes, it is a tragedy.”
“Usually people try to give me some reason, like she died so I could discover some hidden strength or something,” she replied, gritting her teeth at the sentiments she had received by the many neighbors who paid a visit since the massacre.
“That is an awful burden to place upon you,” he stated, and the heaviness in her chest eased up. “I do not believe there is anygrand plan where someone dies for the benefit of another. Your life is your own.”
“Careful, you’re showing your humanity,” she said, latching her eyes onto his.
“That,” he said, sliding his hand into hers with a gentleness she never expected from him, “Is a dangerous thing to believe.”
“Perhaps, but I have this ability,” she said, arching into his touch, and her breasts grazed his chest. “I can feel people, the things they’re hiding under the surface.”
He pressed his other hand firmly against her back, holding her in place. “What is it you feel from me?”
“That you want closeness and that is why you desire mortality, because you’re afraid of hurting things you want.”
“What about you?” he asked deeply, his gray, heavy-lidded stare boring into hers, pupils flaring. “Doyoulong for intimacy?”
Was he…flirtingwith her?
“Yes,” she said, hating the way her body moved of its own accord, leaning into him, longing to devour the inches between them. No. Focus. She needed information. “Only with someone I trust.”
His lips brushed the tip of her ear, his heavy exhale heating her lobe. “You can trust me. We want the same thing.”
Her blinks slowed as she looked up, leaning into his firm touch. His lips pressed together, a low growl reverberating behind closed lips as he drank her in. With a gentle nudge, he removed what little distance remained between them. The scentof him was in her nose—a woody combination with cedar and musk.
Their faces were so close that if she lifted her chin, her lips would graze his.
“I found a card from your hide and seek game. The Hunt,” she blurted to stop herself from doing something she might regret.
“What about it?” he asked softly.
“I want to play.”
Her inhale stuttered when he stroked his thumb over her erratic pulse. “Why?”
“So I can win.”
