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I sense, rather than hear, the person behind me. I don’t turn around to look. It’s a museum, and there are always visitors. Some are noisy, repeating every detail they know about every piece they see, and others, silent. Just like the person behind me.
Without warning, like déjà vu, my skin prickles with the same weird feeling from earlier, when I was outside on the steps.
It’s a combination of panic and anticipation, a warning that a powerful, destructive wave is about to roll into shore and fling me onto sharp rocks before leaving me broken, bloody, and defenseless.
Slowly, I turn. There’s knowledge in my heart that my brain desperately refuses to confirm, even as it panics and begs me to run the other way.
I should run, but like a masochist, I allow myself to come face to face with the one person who, even after years apart, can still reduce me to an aching puddle of emotions just by walking into a room.
Tristan Kane.
CHAPTER3
TRISTAN
From the main entrance, I stay a few steps behind Cora. With her phone at her ear and a sparse crowd of visitors wandering around, she doesn’t notice me. I’m still standing by the main doors when she heads over to the elevators. When she changes her mind and enters the exhibition halls instead, I follow.
She wanders from piece to piece, something like rapture in her features. It’s uncanny how I can tell the exact emotions she’s feeling. That’s how well I know her… this beautiful woman who is now a stranger.
My eyes linger, absorbing everything she does. She’s as perfect as any lovingly crafted work of art. Her passion for the surrounding beauty radiates like a soft aura from her core, filling me with memories of a happier time, an eternity ago.
I know I shouldn’t follow her, but I do. I know I shouldn’t approach her, but I can’t help myself. She wanders from room to room, and I pursue, drawn like a sailor to a siren’s song.
She stops in front of a large painting, a nude in different shades of brown, terracotta and red, unaware of me as I enter the room behind her. Before Cora, I would have been unable to name the artist or the style, but for a time her interests became mine, and my interests are always obsessive. Now, I know the artist whose work she’s admiring. I know the school of artists to which he belonged. I know the tragic story of his life and death. I know, as Cora inclines her head and sighs softly, that she’s thinking of that tragedy too.
She is, and has been for the longest time, my main obsessive interest.
Unable to stop myself, I take a few more steps, pausing just a few feet from her. There’s something inside me desperate to be closer still. In the treated, still air inside the museum, a faint hint of her perfume teases my nose. Her hair hangs motionless, thick and wavy around her shoulders. Briefly, I wonder if it’s still as soft as silk, and my fingers ache with memories and hunger.
Cora.
As if she heard her name in my silent whisper of longing, her body stiffens, then slowly, like she’s acting against her better judgement, she turns around.
I steel myself, preparing for the full force of seeing her face to face.
I am not ready.
Up close, the reality of her presence grips me and tears me up inside. Her eyes widen with shock, then something else, something that mirrors the turmoil rolling under my deceptive outer calm. Her lips part, then compress. Her skin pales, then flushes deeply. Her fingers tighten into fists, and she crosses her arms in front of her, like a defensive but laughingly ineffective barrier. In a span of seconds, the surprise on her face turns to anger, loathing, and wariness.
Resisting an insane urge to laugh, I hold her gaze. She is right to be wary of me, but if anyone has the right to be angry, it’s me.
Taking the time to look her up and down, I let a small smile curl my lips. The years have only polished and refined her beauty. Everything I used to love is still there, now more mature, more desirable. Her throat works as she swallows, and I remember the scent of her skin when I would trail kisses along her neck, a long time ago. She presses her lips together and I remember how sweet they tasted in that long-ago lifetime.
The memories leave me fighting a crazy urge to grab her and claim her lips again, to put my mark on her, make her senseless with pleasure right here, in this cool exhibition room, to make her moan my name, to make her again what she was always meant to be.
Mine.
“Hello, Cora.” My voice is dry and impersonal, amused, as if I haven’t just followed her across an entire museum, desperate for the sight of her face.
She pulls in a sharp breath, and there’s a momentary flash of dismay in her eyes. I chuckle, earning a glare from her fiery eyes.
“Tristan.” Her voice is barely audible. She swallows again and wets her lips with her tongue. It’s a nervous gesture, but the signal it sends to my brain is one of pure lust.
Focus, Tristan.
Her eyes flick to the open archway behind me, and I know she’s calculating her chances of escape. Chuckling again, I step to the side, out of her way, letting her know I won’t stop her.
She can run, but if I’m so inclined, I can reach her anywhere she goes.
