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I can’t have Grace.
My feet carry me through the house—wandering the place like a lost animal, lost in my own head, consumed by my own thoughts.
When I find myself walking past Grace’s room, my feet stop of their own accord. I stare at the dark wood for a moment, then turn the doorknob and give the door a push, opening it silently. The lights are off, but the curtains are open, letting a small beam of moonlight into the room to keep the darkness at bay. She dozes on the bed, her hair splayed out on the pillow.
My rational mind, or what’s left of it, tells me to go. It screams at me to run away and never come back, i
t condemns me for being such a creep, a freak of nature. Who watches someone else sleep? Serial killers. Stalkers. People who shouldn’t be allowed to crawl their way through the world, poisoning the innocent.
But the other side of me, the side that’s fascinated by her light, drawn to it more strongly than I’ve ever been drawn to anything else, won’t let me leave. Even after all the shit she’s been through, there’s something about Grace that reminds me of sunshine. And just like sunshine, she draws me toward her, tempting me with her warmth.
My gaze sweeps over the curves of her body, so soft and perfect. She’s wearing a tank top and thin cotton pants, and the small sliver of bare skin at her waist taunts me, teasing me with the memories of things I shouldn’t be thinking about again.
Watching Hale fuck her. Watching him put his hands where I told him to, touch her the way I wanted to but couldn’t. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than Grace on all fours, her back arched and her head thrown back, pure ecstasy bleeding across her features as she came.
My cock strains in my pants, and I grit my teeth at the desperate ache in my balls. I need to be the one who fucks her, not Hale. I need to be the one to touch her, the one to taste her, to bring her to the brink, to hear those noises she makes—those little moans and cries that haunt me.
I’ll never fucking forget those sounds.
My gaze sweeps up her body, her stomach, her breasts. Her neck and shoulders, the dip of her throat. Her chin. Her mouth—
Shit.
I jerk back, startled to find her hazel eyes open and glinting in the dim light that streams through the window. They’re a little glassy from sleep, but they’re clear and alert as she holds my gaze. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I can fucking imagine.
“I’m fucked up,” I mutter under my breath. “Goddammit, Grace. I’m sorry, I’m fucked up, I shouldn’t—”
A rush of shame and self-loathing consumes me as I turn around, desperate to leave. She wasn’t supposed to see me here. She wasn’t supposed to know I still want her. How much I still need her.
I was supposed to keep a distance. Leave her the fuck alone.
“Wait.” Her quiet words cut through the darkness. “Don’t leave.”
My body betrays me. It obeys her, a slave for her just like my fucking heart is. Stuck between the door and the bed, I can’t move.
“Ciro,” she says slowly, “please come back.”
There’s something in her voice that makes me turn around and glance over at her on the bed.
“I know you’ve been avoiding me,” she says quietly. “And I wish you wouldn’t.”
I grit my teeth, hating the note of pain I can hear in her words.
“You don’t want to avoid me though.” She presses up onto her elbows, still looking at me. “I know you don’t, or you wouldn’t be here right now.”
“I shouldn’t have—” I start again, but she cuts me off.
“Yes, you should. I don’t like when there’s distance between us, Ciro. It hurts me to see you holding yourself back from what I think you want. What I know I want. I’m not afraid of you, and I never will be.”
“That’s a mistake.”
“Why? Because you might hurt me?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to hurt me?”
I swallow, my throat dry. “No.”
