AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER FOUR
SYLVIE
Icurled on Beau’slap when he lifted me into him, running his hands beneath his jacket. Everything smelled likehim. Midnight and sandalwood and sin. He fast became my newest obsession, though if I were honest with myself, he’d been that way since the night I woke up in the hospital, surrounded by beeping machines, the gun’s report echoing in my drug-addled brain, and his fingers laced in mine. When I raised panicked eyes to his, he met me head on, mourning things I didn’t remember, holding me tight. And when I fell, he was my safety net.
Then he ripped that clear away, leaving me bereft for so long my heart crystalized into a static version that fell in love with him months ago.
Or the man I thought he was, when he kissed me, and promised no one would hurt me again.
Stupid fucking me, I believed him.
And yet here I was, his brand of sin coating my thighs, letting his hands wander over my body as though he needed to ensure every part of me was alright. How the hell was this the same man?
“You left me spiraling,” I whispered, my thoughts scattering as he cupped the back of my head, drawing me close enough that we shared a breath. “I was alone. You promised you’d protect me.” My vision shimmered, and the hard line of his jaw ticked.
“You were safe because I wouldn’t let anyone near you. Not the police, not the dean’s office when we did clean up. Fuck, if I had it my way, you’d be sleeping in my goddamn bed so I could see you were okay every night.”
I blinked at him. “What?”
His mouth softened as he stroked my cheek. “Did you really think just because I wasn’t beside you that you weren’t safe?” His mouth grazed mine in the sort of tender gesture I couldn’t equate with the man I’d seen kill twice now.
Why aren’t I shaking? Why aren’t I reacting?
It wasn’t that I was numb; my brain just didn’t seem to care.
Beau’s arms tightened around me. “Come back to me, Sylvie,” he whispered. “Tell me where you went.”
A note of command lay beneath the simple request, jerking me back to him as I was ordered to do.
“I was... Four months, Beau. That’s a long damn time to think you hated me.”
His fingers on my jaw tightened enough that I froze in his lap. “And tomorrow we will go back to hating each other, if only in front of the world.”
“Why?” I whispered, searching his eyes. “Why can’t we just be...like everyone else?”
He laughed softly, a sound that sent a thrill rippling along my spine. I pressed deeper into his arms, immersing myself in his scent, seeking warmth, reassurance I knew wasn’t coming.
“Because we aren’t like anyone else.”
“I am.” I sounded like a petulant child, and wished I could retract the comment. Instead, I broke his intense eye contact, unable to let him read my soul, and fiddled with his bow tie. “You’re like a twisted version of James Bond.”
“Or James Bond is a cleaner version of me.”
I snorted softly, flicking one of his buttons open. My fingertips brushed his skin, a tingle shooting through them. Warmth emanated between us, and not only was I desperate to erase his brother’s feral touch from my body, I wanted Beau inside me again, and claim the sort of closeness I suspected was rare in his life.
The sort of closeness that first kiss in hospital started, settling alight an ember of hope in my heart.
