“I won’t fuck you,” he said, stroking her hair like one would pet a frightened kitten. “I just want to hold you.”
Someone to hold. How much she wanted—needed—that too. The captive finding solace in her captor’s arms. How ironic. But she needed something in return. “Promise me.”
He looked at her like the world outside the walls didn’t exist. “Anything.”
“When it’s time, I choose how.”
His breathing quickened, the air he exhaled warm on her face. “Stop thinking about that. I don’t want to kill you.”
“But you will if you must.”
“Shh,” he said, pressing his forehead against hers. “Tell me a secret.”
She folded her hands around his neck. It seemed like such a natural thing to do in the circumstances. “You know all of them.” Every one that mattered.
He rubbed a thumb over her lips, tracing the movement with his eyes. “Tell me one.”
The caress felt right. The way he held her was new, but it felt familiar. It didn’t matter who they were, him the hunter and she the prey, because stripped down to its core, the moment was real. He’d burned down the bridges of the worlds that separated them when he’d given her his vulnerability. He’d created this bubble, this fragile piece of honesty in a nightmare riddled with questions and deceit. It would be gone by morning, the gilded coach turning back into a pumpkin. Would it be so wrong to take what he was offering?
“If not a secret, then tell me about your dream.” The playfulness of his smile didn’t mask the sadness underneath. “I told you about mine. It’s only fair.”
No, it wasn’t fair. She didn’t owe him anything, but she couldn’t deny him after he’d sliced open his heart and let her have a peek inside.
Blowing out a sigh, she said, “There’s not much to tell. You came.” She shrugged, motioning at the room. “Then this.”
“I want to fuck you, but I won’t.”
She froze at the words. Not only were they out of place, but there was also too much information in that statement, too many threads she couldn’t pull apart.
“Ask me why,” he said when she didn’t reply.
Did he only find her desirable when he was drunk? The stakes of this truth were too high. “I don’t want to know.”
She did. She wanted to know, but she still had her pride. She wasn’t going to surrender her pride with her life.
He studied her. “You do. You’re asking yourself why I don’t want you.” A battle raged in those mercurial pools. She wasn’t the only one who was fighting an internal war. “You’re thinking maybe you’re not hot enough, but nothing can be further from the truth, so ask, little witch.”
“No.”
His expression turned possessive. “You and me, we have history. You know it just as well as I do.”
He was referring to her stalking. Stubbornly, she kept her mouth shut.
“Fine,” he said when the silence stretched. “I’ll tell you anyway. I shouldn’t want you for so many reasons, but I do.”
He was pulling on the string of a ribbon tied to her heart. Just a little more, and it would float free, past these walls and the shackles of enemies, right up into the sky.
“I won’t,” he said, “not as long as this case hasn’t been solved, but it’s not over.”
Her throat went dry. “What more do you want?”
“To finish what we started.”
“Why?” she uttered with a gasp.
Determination stole over his features. “I keep what’s mine.”
“It happened once,” she exclaimed.
“Once, a hundred times, it doesn’t matter.”
“B–but I thought you were—”
“Promiscuous? I’ve never let anyone who belonged to me go.”
“The others,” she stuttered. “The other girls…”
He lifted a brow, waiting for her to connect the dots.
“They dumped you?” she asked with disbelief.
“Every one of them.”
It was hard to imagine. “Why?”
“They all eventually figured out I was no good. I’m no good for a woman, especially not for someone as innocent as you, but we can’t change what happened. We’re just going to live with it.”
Live with it? “This isn’t the same. There’s nothing between us.”
“You gave yourself to me. You don’t get to just take it back.”
“It was once!”
His gaze cut her open, stealing the secret she didn’t want to admit. “As I said, I take sex very seriously.” Delving deeper yet, brushing the edges of her soul, he said, “That’s why I shouldn’t do this while you’re my prisoner.”
He kept his eyes open as he lowered his head and pressed his lips against hers. It was a message, telling her he owned the wrong he was committing. He was unafraid and fearless. Regretful, but honest.
Sparks crackled over her skin. She wanted to be strong and do the right thing, but so many things were already wrong. Both of them were doomed in their own ways, their ghosts hovering in the dark corners of their hearts.
When he deepened the kiss, her resistance fizzled. Arching up, she sought the hardness of his body and the soft parts of his soul. For a short while, they were just Joss and Clelia, two people who grew up in the same town. Who knew what they could’ve shared if she hadn’t been too young and his guilt hadn’t chased him away? For as long as he was kissing her with gentle strokes of his tongue, the reason he was back didn’t matter.
He kissed her like he had in the cemetery, with soft urgency. His hands moved over her hair to the back of her head, lifting and tilting her face just so, giving him the access he wanted. He was tender, even when her body screamed for more. His control was commendable. If not for his hard-on giving away his desire, she would’ve thought he wasn’t affected at all. He kissed her with patience, but the slow rocking of his hips stirred a need that had her moaning into the kiss, knowing where she wanted him to take her was forbidden.
When
