Her perfect gingerbread cheeks shone—she was crying.
I wanted to trail my fingers along her spine.
I wanted her words.
I wanted to tear the fucker out of her. Rip out that jagged shard that made her bleed.
I want her blood on my hands.
But even on the empty terrace, that would be too obvious. So I dug my fingers into my pockets, and went to her. I leaned in the opposite direction against the railing, a good space of distance between us.
“Little wife, why are you crying?”
She startled. “If anyone sees you—”
“Stop warning me, Snitch,” I growled. “I know the consequences.”
She dragged her bottom lip between her teeth, nodding.
I repeated my question, voice harder. “Why are you crying, Snitch?”
She sniffed, wiping snot from beneath her nose. “Just…hormones.”
My heart is rusty.
I remembered her letter to me. The one she thought I wasn’t reading. Did she think I’d judge her? That I’d think her soul wouldn’t shine so diamond bright? A secret for a secret maybe…so I leaned back on the stone railing.
“I can’t look at Lottie anymore, Snitch. Not because of what she did to me, but because of what I’ve become.”
Her eyes grew, and she leaned just a little bit closer.
“I’ve treated her horribly. I should at least treat her with some modicum of kindness for the child she carries inside her, and I just…I can’t look at her. I fucking hate her. I hate myself.”
Silence stretched, the ocean our whispering voyeur. I was starting to think she’d never let me in. Then her raspy voice carried softly on the waves.
“He’s bad,” she whispered “He’s cruel, but then…sometimes he’s not. You are my soul, my light, but he is in me, Grayson.”
Side by side, we stared forward at opposite directions—her at the beach, me at the party inside. But we’d moved closer, until her arm was flush against mine. Her lips were tauntingly close, all I’d have to do was turn my neck to the side, and we’d collide.
“He is in my heart,” she continued. “He is a rusted, flaking piece of my heart.”
I shifted, crossing one leg over the other. I shouldn’t be getting hard at this, at my wife crying, at her pain, but it’s like fucking heroin when she tells me her secrets. I crave her dirty insides, the parts she thinks I don’t want to hear.
Only I’ve been there.
Story licked her lips, pupils dilated.
I wondered if she was like me.
We were in view, so I couldn’t touch her, but I could talk, I could weave the fantasy around us so thick it became a mirage.
Our pinkies touched. It was just our fingers, but it was dangerous.
Illicit.
Right.
She curved her pinky around mine—