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Was he flirting with me again? While I might have loved it earlier, that lust-drunk thing had long since worn off, and I was tired, no longer in the mood. No matter how his gaze smoldered, leaving me burning hotter than rabbits roasting on the coals.
All the talk of my mother made me wonder how different things might have been today if she were still alive. But Rumi had always told me not to dwell on the past, reasoning that it couldn’t be changed, and to focus on what I could control: my future. Sage words.
“Roses were my wife’s favorite flower, too,” he said, his eyes turning distant as he ran a hand through his long hair.
No good could come of this conversation. Only pain. Reminiscing on a life that would never be. A road I didn’t want to travel. Least of all with Flare.
“Good night,” I said, forcing a smile at him as I crawled away to my sleeping spot between Shadow and Phantom.
“Running away, sweetheart?” he asked. “From me or from the pain you carry?”
He was one to talk? Despite my attempts to dislike him, to keep as far away from him as possible, the bastard had gotten under my skin. Flare and I were one and the same. Scarred by our pasts. Pained by the burdens we’d borne. Forever changed by painful losses that we’d had no control over. He recognized it in me, as I did in him. No matter how much I tried to deny it. Flare left me exposed, and that nakedness, that inability to hide, frightened and flustered me.
Flipping hell.What was wrong with me? Flare wasn’t my kind of guy. Unfriendly. Untrustworthy. Unpredictable. Yet he was doing something strange to me. Something I didn’t understand. Not that I’d ever admit that to him.
“Want me to ward off the dark magic in your collar?” I asked him. “So you can sleep closer to the fire?”
“No thanks, sweetheart,” Flare said, making his way to his little bed. “I don’t trust magic.”
I shrugged. He could suit himself.
I wriggled in between the two sexy, sleeping panthers. Phantom groaned, his hand stretching out, searching for mine, clasping it, pulling it to his stomach. I wanted to brush the back of my hand along the tuft of hair trailing down to his groin. Longed to revel in the beauty of his sleeping face, the heat blazing from him, the comfort he offered.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about Flare. Our gazes locked right before I lay my head down, and we searched each other for buried secrets, for understanding. The thought of what he might find rattled me to the core. Under his spell, I was powerless to stop him or myself. Or maybe deep down, I didn’t want to. Maybe I’d been lying to myself all along.
