Page 61 of Bleed the Shadows
I tried to tell myself I was being stupid while I opened the door to the Hummer for Maeve, but the inner pep talk did nothing to ease the tightness in my chest.
The truth was, I had every reason to be nervous. I’d fucked it with Maeve — hard and more than once — and there was no guarantee she’d ever forgive me. In fact, if some asshole had treated Cassie the way I’d treated Maeve, I would have ordered her never to forgive him, then cut off the guy’s balls, stuffed them in his mouth, and buried him on the mountain just to be safe.
But here I was, wanting Maeve to forgive me more than I’d ever wanted anything, except maybe that night in the kitchen when I’d thought I might stop breathing if I didn’t fuck her.
She lifted her legs into the Hummer, giving me a flash of her milky thighs under her coat, and my dick turned hard as granite. Remy wasn’t the only one who wanted to tear the silver dress from her body.
But that would be a mistake, one that would doom me with Maeve for good.
Plus, I wasn’t sure my balls could take another one of her knees.
I walked around to the driver’s side and forced myself to breathe.
She didn’t say a word on the way up the mountain, which would have been fine except for the fact that the tension between us was thick enough to need a butcher knife.
No pun intended.
I was pretty sure it wasn’t just I-hate-you tension, but also I-want-to-rail-you-so-bad-it-hurts tension, but maybe that was just me.
She didn’t ask where we were going, but when we pulled up the long drive to the Mountaintop Inn she sat up a little straighter. “Is this the Mountaintop?”
I nodded.
“I’ve never been here,” she said.
“Me neither.” Fine dining wasn’t really my thing. “I hope it’s good.”
“The current chef studied at the CAA in Switzerland. I’m sure it’s amazing.”
She sounded excited and that made me excited too, which was as strange a feeling as everything else roiling my gut.
Excitedwasn’t really my thing either.
The valet took the Hummer and we started up the walkway, past a series of lanterns flickering with candlelight, and into a candlelit foyer.
The building was an old stone mansion on the historic register. A polished stone banister led to rooms on the second and third floors and I tried not to think about how easy it would be to take Maeve upstairs, peel off the silver dress, claim her body for my own.
I’d already made the mistake of putting my hunger for her before everything else. She deserved better, and I reminded myself not to fuck up again.
Like the rest of the place, the room was candlelit and decorated for Christmas, two large trees sparkling with white lights in the corners of the room. The lights reflected off the windows, making it seem like the whole place was draped in stars.
We were seated at a table near a wall of windows overlooking the gardens. They were on the wane with the coming winter, but there was something eerily pretty about it anyway.
Maeve looked around the room. “Everything looks so beautiful. I keep forgetting it’s almost Christmas.”
“Me too,” I said, although the truth was I never really thought much about the holidays.
Remy usually went home, Poe spent it with his grandparents, and I usually stopped at Cassie’s to exchange gifts and have lunch or dinner, depending on whether or not she was at her best friend Daisy’s big old house at the top of Blackwell Falls’ namesake waterfall.
We looked over the menu and I asked Maeve for suggestions, since she was the resident food expert. She seemed genuinely excited to try the food and a warm flush of pleasure rolled through me at the thought that I’d done something to make her happy, even this small thing.
I ordered a bottle of wine with the food, not because I was into wine but because it seemed like the civilized thing to do. The server returned with the bottle and filled our glasses, and I waited for him to leave to raise mine in a toast.
Maeve raised hers too, and I couldn’t say I blamed her for the worry on her face. I wouldn’t trust me to make a good toast either.
“To pissed-off girls with swift reflexes.”
Laughter transformed her face and my heart did this weird thing where it kind of skipped in my chest. I’d seen her laugh with Poe and Remy, but never with me.
