Page 131 of The Perfect Wrong

I nod once.

There’s a buzz in his pocket and his eyes soften, no doubt his family calling. While Sex storms off, finger combing his hair, I know I’m not just saying it for his benefit.

How do I go on my merry cartel-busting way without seeing Delia again?

How the hell do I stay away when the stakes have never been higher and I may never taste her again?

15

Lime-Tinted Dream (Delia)

I’ve just lived the slowest twenty-four hours of my life.

One whole day since we stepped off the plane together and Chris dropped me off at home. A perfectly ordinary way to deliver heartbreak with a ribbon on top without even trying.

It’s what we agreed.

Still.

My heart sank when his lips pulled away from that brutally final sticky-sweet kiss.

“Take care of yourself, princess. Don’t know when I’ll be back,” he said.

His words echo now like whispers in a tomb.

Becausedon’t know whencould easily meannever ever.

I sigh, annoyed at how I braced myself with a dozen pep talks in my head on the plane. None of them did a damned thing to help face the new reality without him.

Nobody talks about the other side of paradise with these flings that aren’t meant to be, when all the forbidden kissing stops and there’s just a terrible price to pay in emptiness.

I spend the day cooped up in my room, straining to gush words down on blank pages. That paper won’t write itself and it doesn’t care how miserable I am.

But the words won’t come.

Not when Chris flashes in my mind with his rogue’s smile and bright-green eyes every time I try typing the word SEAL.

It’s not just him.

It’s everything that happened back in Vegas.

The way he slaughtered those monsters who would have dragged me to hell.

The sweet patience putting me back together.

The storm of his mouth, his body, his soul every night, claiming what will always be his no matter how many times I wish it wasn’t.

God.

I wonder what’s worse—the acid drip of heartbreak or the incessant pulse between my thighs.

On the flight back home, I woke up curled up against him.

For a flimsy second, I thought we might be able to put it all behind us.

Maybe we’d actually gotten it out of our systems with the wild, screaming, sheet-ripping nights.

But by day two, I’m a flipping mess.

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