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Ugh! Stop. Right there. I drag the back of my hand across my nose. Try it again, focus, get the words out, one after the other, like the steps of my sorry life.
"Morn came and went—and came, and… and…"My voice breaks. "Bloody asinine hell." I dig my fingers into the grass and grab a handful and fling it out. Again. From the top.
"Morn came and went—and came, and—"
"…brought no day."
A gravelly voice completes my sentence.
I whip my head around. His silhouette fills my line of sight. He's sitting on the same knoll as me, yet I have to crane my neck back to see his profile. The sun is at his back, so I can't make out his features. Can't see his eyes... Can only take in his dark hair, combed back by a ruthless hand that brooked no measure.
My throat dries.
Thick dark hair, shot through with grey at the temples. He wears his age like a badge. I don’t know why, but I know his years have not been easy. That he’s seen more, indulged in more, reveled in the consequences of his actions, however extreme they might have been. He’s not a normal, everyday person, this man. Not a nine-to-fiver, not someone who lives an average life. Definitely not a man who returns home to his wife and home at the end of the day. He is…different, unique, evil… Monstrous. Yes, he is a beast, one who sports the face of a man but who harbors the kind of darkness inside that speaks to me. I gulp.
His face boasts a hooked nose, a thin upper lip, a fleshy lower lip. One that hints at hidden desires, Heat. Lust. The sensuous scrape of that whiskered jaw over my innermost places. Across my inner thigh, reaching toward that core of me that throbs, clenches, melts to feel the stab of his tongue, the thrust of his hardness as he impales me, takes me, makes me his. Goosebumps pop on my skin.
I drag my gaze away from his mouth down to the scarthat slashes across his throat. A cold sensation coils in my chest. What or who had hurt him in such a cruel fashion?
"Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light…"
He continues in that rasping guttural tone. Is it the wound that caused that scar that makes his voice so… gravelly… So deep… so… so, hot?
Sweat beads my palms and the hairs on my nape rise. "Who are you?"
He stares ahead as his lips move,
"Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour
They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash—and all was black."
I swallow, moisture gathers in my core. How can I be wet by the mere cadence of this stranger’s voice?
I spring up to my feet.
"Sit down," he commands.
His voice is unhurried, lazy even, his spine erect. The cut of his black jacket stretches across the width of his massive shoulders. His hair… I was mistaken—there are threads of dark gold woven between the darkness that pours down to brush the nape of his neck. A strand of hair falls over his brow. As I watch, he raises his hand and brushes it away. Somehow, the gesture lends an air of vulnerability to him. Something so at odds with the rest of his persona that, surely, I am mistaken?
My scalp itches. I take in a breath and my lungs burn. This man... He’s sucked up all the oxygen in this open space as if he owns it, the master of all he surveys. The master of me. My death. My life. A shiver ladders along my spine.Get away, get away now, while you still can.
I angle my body, ready to spring away from him.
"I won’t ask again."
Ask. Command. Force me to do as he wants. He’ll have me on my back, bent over, on my side, on my knees, over him, under him. He’ll surround me, overwhelm me, pin me down with the force of his personality. His charisma, his larger-than-life essence will crush everything else out of me and I… I’ll love it.
"No."
"Yes."
A fact. A statement of intent, spoken aloud. So true. So real. Too real. Too much. Too fast. All of my nightmares… my dreams come to life. Everything I’ve wanted is here in front of me. I’ll die a thousand deaths before he’ll be done with me… And then? Will I be reborn? For him. For me. For myself.
I live, first and foremost, to be the woman I was… am meant to be.
