Page 69 of Princess of Pride
A gust teeters me backwards onto my heels. The wind shifts and my hair blasts away from my face. I spread my armswide and stare out over the blue horizon. My eyes burn from the salty air, sharp wind, and my tears. If I stand like this long enough, maybe I’ll go numb inside and out. Maybe then I can breathe.
“Emery!” Lachlan’s voice rises over the sound of crashing waves and the blasting wind. “Emery,” he shouts louder, his tone sharp. “Come to me.” His English accent is thick.
I glance over my shoulder as my satin dress billows behind me, ghostlike. I must look haunting—that's why fear flickers in his eyes.
“Come to me.” He holds out his hand and slowly walks toward me.
My long strands whip across my face. I turn away from him, letting the wind sweep them back.
“Emery!” he barks with a panic that must only be in my head. Either that or he’s mad. Nothing new there.
“Emery, goddammit, come to me right now! Come to me! Come to me, my golden princess. Come to me.” It sounds like a chant, a desperate plea that has me looking back at him again.
He’s closer, almost to me, and with so much horror on his face.
A gust hits me from the right, shoving me sideways. I lose my balance and teeter forward—too far, too far. I’m falling. Terror seizes me. I start to scream, but strong arms seize my waist from behind and yank me backward. We crash to the ground, his body breaking my fall.
My breathing blows fast and shallow, my lips growing numb. I almost fell. I could have died. Iwouldhave died.
Maybe I should have.
The thought jolts me to awareness. Never in my life have I contemplated that.Never.
I don’t want to die. I just don’t want to hurt. Lachlan sits up and scoots backward away from the ledge, dragging me withhim by the waist. Once we’re several feet away, he turns me and brushes my hair from my face until our eyes connect. His other arm is tight on my waist, securing me to him.
“Are you all right?” Fear rings in his thicker accented voice.
I nod and wipe my eyes, unsure of exactly how that happened. I wasn’t that close to the ledge. I didn’t think I was.
He presses his forehead to mine, his hand at the back of my neck. “Don’t ever,ever, do that again.”
This is the most emotion I’ve seen from him. If I weren’t witnessing it, I wouldn’t believe he was capable of such a strong reaction.
“I didn’t want to fall.”
He pulls back to look at me. “Why were you there then?” Anger seeps into his voice and eyes.
“I couldn’t breathe.” Explaining more than that would be too much. He wouldn’t understand or be interested anyway.
He holds my gaze, searching it for something, his breathing ragged. Then he’s kissing me as fiercely as the waves crash into the rocks below. His tongue is hot, his breath racing. He holds the back of my head, commanding I stay where I am and take what he’s giving me.
And I take it.
I open wider for him and grab at his suit jacket, giving into the urge to submit and let this confounding man control me. I drink in his scotch taste as the roughness of his scruff brushes my skin. I lose myself in the sensations building in me, wanting them to erase the pain bleeding from my heart. He can make me forget it all. He can send me to heaven where all I’ll feel is ecstasy.
I’ll do whatever he wants.
He stops kissing me. “What did you say?”
Oh. I must have spoken my thoughts aloud. “I’ll do whatever you want,” I confess. “I know you can do it.”
“Do what?” He wipes moisture from my cheek and grazes my bottom lip with his thumb.
“Take the pain away.” At the mere word, my heart crumbles, and new tears form.
Desire withers from his eyes, replaced with concern. “What happened?”
I shake my head and press my lips to his. He kisses me but not with the same intensity as before.
