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“Do you like it?” I ask self-consciously, wiping my sweaty palms against my pants.
He stalks toward me until mere inches separate us. “I do, but that’s not what has me captivated.”
I stare up at him, confused. “What, then?”
Lifting his hand, he traces the outline of my lips with his finger. “That smile. You look happy.”
“Oh.” That's all I’m capable of saying.
He continues to stare, entranced, at my mouth, his fingers pressed against the seam. “I only wish I could have been the one to make you smile like that.”
If that doesn’t utterly melt my heart.
With what looks like it requires incredible strength, he tears his gaze away from my lips to look me in the eyes. “I take it you had a good time with my sister?”
“I did.”
He nods, seeming satisfied. “Did she buy you everything you need?”
“And more.” The second the words are out of my mouth, I worry that Dara may have spent too much and bought me more than Don had intended, except he simply smiles.
“Good.” His eyes drop to my outfit, and his hands move to my hips. “I’m sure you look as ravishing in everything else she purchased as you do in this.”
There’s something about Don’s close proximity that chases all logical thought from my mind. My earlier fears and insecurities are forgotten when he looks at me the way he is now—as though I’m worthy of his complete and undivided attention.
When he’s this close, and his hands are on me, I don’t care about curses or angering a higher power. Nothing outside of the two of us exists. It’s him and me and nothing else. My body’s response is visceral, and that soul-deep disconnect Dara mentioned dissipates. It’s as though my soul hums with contentedness when he’s around.
Dara said earlier about knowing your other half when you meet them. Is this what she meant? This complete sense of peace and calm. This inability to think beyond the other person, to want to be close to them, to want to spend every minute together.
I have always been at war with myself. Always battling to stop the Devil from using me as a vessel to do his work. Always begging God to see the goodness in my heart.
Always hating myself for failing miserably at both.
But as though my head has been dunked under water at a ceremonial baptism, all of that fighting simply stops. Everything other than him and I is muted. The battle ceases, and this indescribable serenity and contentment settle inside me. For the first time in my life, I feel at peace. As though all of this fighting hasn’t been against the Devil or God, but to get to Don. To find the missing half of my soul and reunite the two so we could live in perfect harmony.
Don, who has been watching me with keen awareness while I come to this realization, places his hand over my heart. “You feel it, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I confess, staring into the bottomless pits of his eyes. “I do.”
His smile is slow and full of awe and hope. He has never looked more beautiful than he does at this moment. I’ve always thought he looks like the Devil, and maybe he is. At this point, I’m not even sure I care. If this is what it feels like to find the missing parts of yourself, then I’d follow him all the way to hell to keep him close.
His gaze drops to my lips, and I catch the hitch in his breathing as his hands squeeze my hips tighter. When he speaks, his voice has dropped an octave and has this irresistible husk to it. “I have been trying really damn hard to be a gentleman, but I need to kiss you more than I need air to breathe.”
I think… I need him to kiss me, too.
Tilting my head back at the same time as he leans in, our lips collide, soft yet firm. He yanks my body against him until I can feel the hard planes of his chest against my soft skin. One arm bands around my waist when my knees begin to quake, his other one sliding along the length of my spine until it tangles in the fine hairs at the nape of my neck.
His tongue traces every inch of my mouth the entire time, and he captures each of my soft moans as though they are necessary for his survival.
I’m so lost in him that I don’t even notice he’s lifted me off the ground and carried me until my back hits the plush cushions of the sofa and his comforting weight presses down on me.
With his face hovering inches above mine, his eyes boring into me, Don says in a guttural tone that sends a gush of wetness dripping between my thighs, “You need to tell me now if you want me to stop, because if I go any further, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to.”
My heart slams at a treacherous pace against my ribcage, and my body feels as though it’s on fire, but the very last thing I want him to do is to stop.
A voice at the back of my mind tries to speak up, to tell me this is wrong and a sin and that God will never forgive me, but it’s snuffed out before it can take root and poison this warmth, flooding me.
Staring deeply into his eyes, I tell him, “Don’t stop.”
