Page 46 of The Front Runner
I say nothing more because I’m spitting mad. I don’t think I can come up with any additional nice things to say at this current juncture. Mira’s father stands on my way past and shoves his hand into mine, shaking it with a firm nod. Sylvia looks like she might cry, too.
It’s almost exactly like Mira said. Lovely people, but so averse to confrontation they sit by for garbage like that.
Lucky for her, I’m not so lovely.
I stride to the front door and slip my feet into the soft brown loafers before heading into the humid spring air. It’s sunny and warm, but it’s raining. Fat drops of water fall from the sky, and I expect Mira to be waiting in my SUV, but she’s not.
I scan the driveway, feeling the rain soaking in through my thin shirt. The urge to snap on someone is powerful right now. The look on Mira’s face when that woman just kept going, even though she was clearly upsetting her niece…
Fiery rage burns through my bones as I recall it.
Never again.
A flash of white catches my eye on the far side of the yard. Mira is standing in the rain staring out across a field of low-growing shrubs. She looks tiny from this far away, fragile even. My feet move toward her before my brain even has time to catch up. All I want to do is talk to her. I want to whisk her away to the floor of a stall in my barn and stay up all night talking to her. Hearing about her hopes and dreams. I want to tell her everything.
I want my hands on her body. My skin on her skin.
“Hey,” I murmur once I’m close enough I’m sure she’ll hear me over the patter of the rain. Looking up above us, I see dark clouds circling the valley and the bright rays of sun stretching down through them, bathing us in their light.
“Stefan, please. Not right now.”
“Mira—”
“Can you just not?” Her voice is tearful, and from behind, I can see her hands shoot up so she can press the palms of her hands into her eye sockets. She’s trying not to cry.
She’s so strong.
I step closer and touch her mid-back, right over the indent there. I can’t explain why I find this part of her body so erotic, but I can’t stop resting my hand on this indent. I trail my fingers up the column of her spine until they glide across the wet skin exposed between her shoulder blades.
“Stefan.” Her voice sounds rusty when it breaks over the sound of my name. “You can’t keep doing this.”
“Doing what?”
The rain falls around us, muting any other sounds like a veil. A protective layer from the rest of the world. I watch a droplet of rain roll down the slender slope of her neck, tracing her body the way I wish I could.
“Making me want things I can’t have.”
My heart thunders against my ribcage. That’s not the answer I was expecting. “I’m not.”
She shrugs my hand off her body, but she doesn’t step away or turn around. Instead, she groans and tips her head up to sky, loose locks of dark hair plastered to her face. She closes her eyes and lets the rain wash over her face.
“You are. You embody it. With you here charming everyone and then burning the place down to defend me… I feel like I could have it all. The career, the family—I could have someone like you. But that’s not real.Thisisn’t real. I can’t have that.”
“Mira, listen to me.” I step closer to her. She smells like honey and fresh rain. “You can have that.”
“People wouldn’t understand. They wouldn’t forgive me.” Her chin drops to her chest now.
With the wild mass of black hair pulled over her shoulder, I’m stuck staring at the rain shimmering on her bare skin.
“Who cares?” My hands itch to touch her, and I don’t fight it. I reach forward and grip her hips from behind as I drop my lips to the bone at the base of her neck. My tongue darts out over the droplets of water there, and she whimpers the second I do.
I pull away momentarily to watch goosebumps race out over her arms. A dead giveaway. “Tell me that’s not real, Mira.”
Her chest heaves under the weight of her breathing. With our height difference, I can see the globes of her breasts from over her shoulder. Full and round and covered in water. I can’t take my eyes off her, and when she turns to look at me over her shoulder, her dark eyes aren’t shrink-wrapped anymore. They are living fire, dancing with every shade of amber and burgundy and black. She looks almost otherworldly.
Her rose-petal lips part slightly as she scours my face, and I wonder if my eyes are the same. I wonder if I look like I’m starving the way she does.
“It’s real.” Her voice is thick and sultry, and I reach across her body and twist her toward me.
