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His lips curled up, and he brushed a strand of hair off my cheek. “Aye, I suppose it does.”
My breath caught as he leaned in. I could feel myself straining forward, every cell in my body desperate to be closer to him. A second before his lips could meet mine, I turned away, forcing his mouth to ghost over my cheek.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kiss him. It was too intimate. Sex was one thing. It was primal, a release. But kissing? It spoke to deeper feelings. And I couldn’t allow myself to get tangled up in those. It would only confuse me further.
“Fecking hell, Sunday,” he whispered against my jaw. “The wanting is killing me.”
“Wanting is one thing. Loving is another. You can’t say you love me if you still plan to go through with it.”
I didn’t have to say whatitwas. We were both painfully aware.
He clenched his jaw, released me, and turned away, raking his hands through his hair. “Sweet suffering Jesus, you don’t have any idea how hard this is for me. Do you think I want to see this through?”
“Yes.”
“You’re wrong. I tried for years to find another way. I nearly drove myself mad searching for another option until a few days ago when I finally had to admit defeat.”
“Years?”
“I’ve been bound to you since the day you were born.”
I shook my head, my gut churning with unease at the gravity of the bomb he just dropped. “So you’ve always known? And you made me fall in love with you anyway?”
He faltered, and I watched him try to walk it back, to put the cat in the bag again. “No. Not like you’re thinking. I didn’t know what we would be to each other. Only that I was tasked with putting a stop to... this.”
I scoffed. “That’s a pretty way of saying murder.”
“I didn’t know it would come to that. And once I did, I’d hoped for a different path. But now that it’s inevitable, that this is what will come to be, all I want is to store up as many precious moments with you as I can before... ” He paused and took a shuddering breath.
“Before what?”
“Before the only thing left in your eyes when you look at me is hate.”
I wanted to say I could never hate him, but I didn’t think that was true. Because if he went through with it, I would. There was no way I couldn’t.
“I might be your prisoner, and I might be your mate, so you hold a power over me I can’t ignore. But that doesn’t mean I have to give you my heart. Knowthat, the next time you use our connection against me. It isn’t love. It isn’t real. It isn’tme. When I give you my body, it’s a means to an end. My way of scratching an itch, nothing more.”
“Sunday... ”
But I said everything I’d intended to say on the matter. Let him sit with that. Let him think about what he was losing by walking down this path.
I stormed away from him, heading toward the bluff and the glittering ocean below. Hope that had been shattered only moments before bloomed as my gaze lit on a dock at the shore. The only dock within sight.
That was how I’d escape. Caleb’s servant. The next time they showed up with their supplies, I’d steal their boat, and the two of them could live out their days trapped on this island.
I should feel guilty about condemning an innocent to such a fate, but I didn’t.
I was getting away. I had to.
ChapterEight
THORNE
The night Sunday disappeared
Isnatched the phone from Moira’s grip, leaving it on speaker, but needing some sense of control in this maelstrom we never seemed free of. Staying close to the group, I scowled down at the screen. Asher Henry. Who the devil was he?
“Our mate has been taken. Find her,” I barked.
