Shoulders instantly locked, and when her fingers curled white over the edge, I instantly questioned what I’d asked.
She said she wanted to be alone.
But I didn’t want her to be. Honestly, I didn’t care what she did once she got down from this high dive, but I didn’t think she should be up here by herself. It could be dangerous. It was fucking high up and if she fell and hit the wrong angle, disaster.
“If you must,” she said, the dark strobe light of her eyes in my direction. “Ramses.”
She’d emphasized my name, and I wasn’t sure I didn’t like it, enjoying the way it sounded in the smoky tone of her voice.
My lips twitching right, I eased down a seat beside her. Though, far enough away to keep the full bottle of wine between us. Another question. Who didn’t drink when they obviously intended to?
Yet another question about this mysterious girl. This mysterious woman. “You, um, weren’t planning on jumping off this thing tonight. Were you, Brielle?”
So quick her gaze swung in my direction, lashes of an ebony black fanning over her irises. “Why would you ask me that?”
Because it appeared to be true, and taking my leg, I propped it up on the ledge, my other dangling. Truth be told, I’d dicked around on this thing myself like a million and a half years ago. But that’d been when I was thirteen and hadn’t completely fully grasped the finality of death. Sure, I’d jumped off this thing and hadn’t died, but thinking back on some of the things I’d done off this ledge and at this level had my twenty-two-year-old self wanting to kick my own ass. It was fucking high up. Actual Olympians trained off this shit. We’d had more
than one roll through here. Hell, we’d had presidents come through these halls. Being a member of the Court held prestige and typically opened a lot of doors for a guy and now, girls. For years, the Court had been archaic and not allowed women in, but this changed when Royal Prinze became president of the association after high school.
All the Court “honor” had done for me in the past was haunt, but not everyone could say that, I suppose. I laced my fingers together. “Well, are you?”
An honest question and I wondered her answer. If she’d actually tell me the reason as she wet her lips. She wore a red matte to the full width, lipsticks I knew entirely too much about as well. I’d watched enough contouring YouTube videos for a lifetime thanks to December Prinze, and the beauty vloggers who shot them often paired the look with a lipstick that didn’t easily rub off, one that could withstand many maneuvers of eating or drinking.
Or bruising.
I couldn’t help but imagine Brielle’s lips doing that as she moved one over the other, a slight pierce hitting her temple when her jaw worked. She had a dark beauty mark right above the left side of her lip, a soft mole which twitched when her lips moved. “I don’t know why you’d ask me that.”
And I noticed she hadn’t answered, either on purpose or because she didn’t know and didn’t want to talk to me.
“Well, I guess just let me know if you decide to jump.” I shrugged. “You know, before?”
“Why?”
I faced her, fighting the grin tugging at my lips, and her eyes flashed wide.
“I mean,” she started, gnawing her lip. A huff and she was tossing her head back. “That’s not what I meant. You…” She shook her head. “You tricked me or something.”
“No trick.” I lifted the hand from my leg. “I was just a concerned citizen, and it can be dangerous up here.”
She passed me a sharp look, and when she shifted her full body in my direction, I had a moment where the lungs didn’t exactly connect to the brain so to speak. Where I had to remind the guys to do their job, or like, well, die. I’d breathed a million times before this moment. Possibly a million and a half, but who was counting.
Brielle in that stark black dress floored this guy, shocked still where I sat with just a look from her. She had an essence about her, a maturity that demanded me to stop and simply take notice.
I wet my lips. “Anyway, like I said, it can be dangerous. Definitely not a place to be playing around.”
I angled my whole body in her direction too, and though she’d been more casual about taking me in, she did notice. Her eyes flashed across the entire width of my shoulders before finding my eyes. Did she find me attractive as well? Hell, if I was hiding looking at her. She was probably one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. In fact, top of the charts.
She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, flashing a single diamond in my direction. It brought a sparkle out in her eyes like nothing else. “I’m not playing around,” she gritted, eyes narrow. “And you shouldn’t have assumed I’m up here to jump.”
“But aren’t you?” I opened up my hand. “You’re up here. By yourself with a bottle of wine.”
“And you’re forward,” she huffed. “Also, quite possibly a little arrogant.”
My eyes flashed. Arrogant was not something I’d been called much. At least, not to my face. I’d had bouts of it back in the day, but today, I was more confident than anything else. When it came to things I wanted, I went for it, you know, only living once and all that. If life taught me one thing, there wasn’t time to pussyfoot through it in wait of second chances. There were no second chances for some of us.
This logic had gotten me in trouble in the past, but no, I didn’t consider myself arrogant. But I did go after things I wanted, and right now, I wanted this woman off this ledge and to the safety of her own two feet. Fuck, I wanted my feet down there with her. I wasn’t trying to play around up here in a five-thousand-dollar suit. I grinned. “If that’s what you think.”
“Oh, I do.” She faced away, blinking. But when she shook her head, I noticed something.