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“Did it mean nothing to you? Is that why you ignored and humiliated me at school?”
“No. During that weekend, I found out something about my father.”
“What?”
“He was dating the woman designing his office. When he said her last name and mentioned her daughter, I knew it was you.”
I sat back against the seat. “Wow.”
“I didn’t want to make things awkward because I knew my dad was serious about your mom. He hadn’t gone into detail before that day. I never knew Cynthia had a daughter or she attended the same school until that night. The same fucking day that we watched the sunrise. Fuck.”
He pulled his hand away, staring through the windshield.
“I wanted more. It was too dangerous with you, Letty. It only got harder when they became engaged. I couldn’t fuck around with the girl that would become my stepsister. I ignored you because I didn’t trust myself to do the right thing.” His head swung in my direction. “But I do now.”
I couldn’t stay mad about that. Not when it meant that he made that decision for the right reasons. “You could have told me. It would have changed so much.” I wouldn’t have hated him. Maybe it wouldn’t change my broken heart, but at least I had a reason for him pulling away from me.
“Letty, it doesn’t change a damn thing.”
“What doesn’t?”
“The wedding. I don’t care if you’re my family because they exchanged rings and made a vow. That’s their fucking decision, and like them, we can make our own.”
Woah. “What are you saying?”
He opened the car door and left, slamming it shut before he stomped around and met me as I opened mine. I slid from the seat without a word and wondered what drove him to be so reckless. My back rested against the car door as he shoved it closed. His breath sounded ragged as if he had just run a mile as our chests nearly collided. A war raged in his eyes for a heartbeat, maybe two, and then he lowered his head until his mouth hovered only an inch or two above mine. “You’re the only one I want, Letty. You and no one else. Not since that night. You’ve haunted me for two and a half years, but not anymore. I’m done with ghosts.”
“I don’t know what that means.” I could see his control slipping. His eyes darkened, and that amber color reminded me of rich honey. His body caged mine in, pressing my back into the cool glass of the window.
“It means me and you and fucking forever, Letty. All or nothing.”
“Gage,” I began, but he didn’t let me finish.
Our mouths collided. The kiss was hard and hot and demanding, and I felt sucked into the vortex that was Gage, forced into his will, but this time I was a willing, eager participant.
God. He consumed me. His scent. His raw sensuality. The lust in his eyes and the fever in his kiss.
I wanted all of it, every bit of him, and I didn’t care that we shared a last name. It didn’t fucking matter. Gage was right. This was about us, not our parents.
He groaned into my mouth, thrusting his tongue inside, sucking and twisting, and taking until my fingers pulled on the hair at his nape, and forced him to let me breathe. His lips brushed mine with every exhalation. And those eyes stripped me bare, revealing secrets I never knew existed.
How could I love someone that I swore to hate?
My palm slid to the spot over his heart, and I felt it race beneath my fingertips.
“No one else does that to me. Only you, Letty.”
“But you still left me,” I whispered, stuck on that detail. He could have come back at some point and explained what happened. I would have listened.
“I didn’t,” he admitted. “I’ve been your shadow this entire time.”
“What?”
“I was ordered to keep my distance but didn’t abandon you, Leticia. I protected you the entire time and waited until I could tell you the truth. But my fucking heart?” He placed his hand over the left side of my chest. “It beat for you every minute and never stopped.”
“Gage,” I whispered, my voice catching, “who ordered you to stay away?”
He leaned back enough to point at the leather vest he wore. I scanned the patches on the front.
