Page 3 of Double Edged Hearts
“Alex… I can’t,” I say to the darkness, and I’m answered by a low, deep chuckle that makes my nerves scatter.
“You can’t?” I ask and step out of the darkness.
I walk from the moonlit balcony into the room so she can see me better.
She trembles. She doesn’t like this obsession any more than I do.
The difference between us is she really could walk away, and no one would ever be able to find her. Then I’d just be passion’s bitch.
I’d just be the fucker who can’t forget her.
“I can’t,” she repeats and makes her voice sound like she really is determined to resist me.
The corners of my mouth lift into a smile I know will weaken her. “I can’t either.”
I can almost see that pretty little mind of hers working overtime to find excuses. I know I’ve won when I move closer and she doesn’t back away. I walk right up to her, reach out to touch her face, and she looks up to me with her beautiful eyes. The look inside them pleads with me. It pleads with me to touch her, to take her, to claim her, to possess her.
To make her mine again.
“I’m…sorry I left you the way I did. I—”
I plant my finger on her delicate lips, stopping her apology. I can’t hear it now, not tonight. She wouldn’t like to know what I went through when I couldn’t find her. No one would ever know what I went through when I thought she was dead.
“Shhh…no, no we’re not talking about that tonight, goddess. Not tonight.” I try to hold back my emotions, masking it with a crude smile, but all that I feel laces in the echo of my words. “Tonight I want something else.”
Her lips tremble and desire fills her eyes. “What…”
“You…” I breathe
“I shouldn’t,” I whisper gazing into his piercing brown eyes.
He looms over me, towering me with his six feet like a vengeful god, but the sharp angles and planes of his handsome face always steal my breath away.
“Doll, if there was any doubt in your mind ofshouldandshouldn’t, you would have stayed away from me. But you went to the secret garden,our spot, knowing I’d find you.” The deep baritone of his voice is smooth and tempting.
“It’s been four years,” I rasp, a final attempt to resist him. One I know I won’t win.
I turn my head, but he catches my neck and his fingers dig into my skin. It’s almost painful, but I’m gazing deep into his eyes just the way he wants me to.
This man is no different from the criminal I’m trying to find. He’s a gangster, yet when I look at him, I just see Alex. I see him for who he is, not what he is. As he touches me, sparks sizzle over my skin, gripping my heart, stealing my last resolve.
“Then tell me goodbye, and I’ll leave you alone forever. Release me from this bond I have to you, Coraline Monroe. Set me free so I can be the devil you know me to be.”
My eyes widen.
Release him?
Say goodbye… forever.
I wait for her to say it.
Part of me wants to hear it.
It will set me free and I can live the rest of my life trying to forget her.
She hesitates, and my pulse quickens when her lips part for her to give me the answer.
I need her to say it. If she doesn’t, what comes next will just be desire. The combustion of what we are when we come together.
