AllFreeNovel
Share Us
No matter what he’d said or claimed, their argument in Greece didn’t start because he had a problem with her degree or her research. It was because he’d approached her like she was any other woman when she was, in fact,hiswoman.
Before he realized it, he was closer to her, his frame obscuring hers like a mountain range towering above a rainforest. Delilah was roughly five-foot-nine, if not taller, and their brother was six-foot-four.
So, where did Hell’s Tinker Bell come from?
“Learn my last name,” he said, entirely departing from everything he’d talked to himself about the entire way there. “There’s no woman in this world I find more beautiful than you, Raina Daniels, and I’ve tried looking. Every-damn-where.”
She looked away.
“You remembered me, didn’t you?” he asked.
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “You look different without a head soaked in red wine.”
“Or you want me as much as I want you.”
“Not sure if my sister mentioned it, but you’re a little young for me, doc.”
Delilah did mention that her sister typically dated men roughly twice her age, for reasons their family still didn’t understand, when there was only an eleven-year gap between him and Raina—as if that would make a difference.
“I had dyscalculia anddyslexia growing up, and I still graduated at the top of my med school class,” he informed her. “Tell me again how scared you think I am of a challenge.”
“I’d break you in half,” his woman hissed.
He took another step. “Then break me. You won’t be whole by the time you’re done.”
She sneered, her attention glued to the empty wall behind his head, and this woman could, very easily, end up being his wife if she wasn’t careful.
“Please don’t tell me you came all the way here to see me,” she said.
“I walked out on a date at thepossibilityof seeing you,” he explained. “You’re so breathtaking, even when I want you to shut your mouth for a second.”
Her gaze snapped back to his. “Shut mywhat,now?”
“You prefer I kiss you with it open?” He tugged her toward him, needing only one hand to command her body on account of their size difference—and because Raina hadn’t put up much resistance. “As I said, it’s Saraci. S-A-R-A-C-I. Learn to say it and learn to spell it. It’ll be yours one day…and so will I.”
He released her, let Delilah know he’d see her when the spring semester began, and left, barely making it to the elevator. There, he clutched his chest, breathing as if someone had cut off his oxygen the entire time he stood inside Delilah’s condo.
His father had once told him that anything worth having was worth fighting for, and he’d applied it to achievements and academics, never considering that the saying could work for a person.
Or a relationship.
The first time he saw Raina behind that podium, he didn’t undress her with his eyes. He didn’t see her beneath him, naked as he moved inside her. Nothing he pictured could be misconstrued as vulgar or lewd, proving his only interest was in sleeping with her.
He did “the thing.”
Saw them together.
Built a life with her in his fantasies.
Equally intrigued and terrified, he’d avoided her, but his feet had carried him across the hotel dining hall. And the moment she opened her mouth, he sawhim—the Lucas Saraci who used to mop linoleum floors while listening to Warren G, Hootie & the Blowfish, and Green Day on his best friend’s CD player.
There’d been no act, no need for arrogance or pretense. As he’d sat across from her, sat across from those angry eyebrows and those damn gorgeous eyes, he found the soul he’d lost too many years ago.
The elevator doors opened, and he burst into his unit, gasping for air as he tugged his tie from around his neck.
Demon woman, don’t let me have you.
I’ll never let you go.
