She stumbled the rest of the way into her room.
I came up short at the doorway.
A bloodsucker who needed an invitation to enter. I stretched my arms over my head and hung onto the top of the doorframe, air heaving from my straining lungs.
Eden sank down onto the side of the bed, woman a seductress and she didn’t even know it. Soft and graceful and sexy as fuck.
Blonde curls hugging her shoulders, that dress draped around her body and showing off every delicious curve.
Little Temptress.
But there was so much confusion and sadness shrouding her as she watched me.
That gaze devouring.
Consuming.
Ruining.
“I should go, Eden, I know it. But I don’t fuckin’ know how to stay away from you.”
Electricity zapped through the air.
Crackles of lust.
An explosion of need.
Her lips parted, and a tiny sound slipped from her lush mouth.
I took a step inside.
“I’ll hurt you, and I won’t even mean to,” I told her, voice raw and rough with the warning.
She fidgeted on the bed, her knees pressing together.
Part in need.
Part in protection.
“I don’t even know what I feel, Trent.” She stared across at me. “I don’t understand this feeling you’ve created in me.” She pressed her hands to her chest.
Pleading.
She laughed a helpless sound. “You’re probably the last man I ever thought I’d want. The last man I should want. So different than anything I ever pictured for my life.”
I didn’t even take offense to it. She wasn’t saying anything different than what I’d been saying all along.
“But I do.” The admission bled free like an appeal. “And I don’t know how to come to terms with that.”
In some kind of shame, her attention drifted to the bedside table.
Like she was drawn.
I followed the path.
To the picture that was there.
Every muscle in my body flinched.
It was of Eden wrapped in the arms of a guy.
A guy who shined the way she did.
A nice guy.
A good guy.
Kind of guy she deserved.
Two of them a mesh of perfection.
Two rings were leaned against the frame.
Old hopes lost.
My stomach suddenly rebelled.
Flailed with her sorrow all while I was overcome with this surge of possession.
Fuck, I really was getting in deep.
So fuckin’ deep when she heaved out a breath and the force of it had me inching closer, her words the softest lashes that struck through the room.
Long, fading echoes that bounced from wall to wall.
“My husband’s been gone for six years.”
No question, this wasn’t a case of a marriage gone bad. The dude hadn’t walked out on her or left her of his own choice. This abandonment was the kind where no blame could lie. The kind that left you ripped open with questions. Bleeding out for the rest of your life.
I slowly eased to my knees on the carpet in front of her.
Overcome again. This time with the need to wrap her up. Hold her pain. Rewrite the sadness from her spirit with something good. “I’m fuckin’ sorry, Eden.”
Affection ridged her face, and she was touching mine again. “Funny how we’ve both told each other the same thing tonight.”
There was no stopping it, the way my hand curled around her wrist, and I was bringing her palm to my mouth, laying a gentle kiss to the soft, soft skin.
“Not the same,” I whispered.
I stared up at her, unsure how to handle this. How to deal. Not when I was aching. Aching for this girl who was clearly aching for someone else. “What happened to him?”
Her head shook, and she warily peeked at me, her voice thin, taxed with sorrow. “Nothing glamorous. A car accident in the middle of the day.”
I squeezed her knees. Why I was encouraging her to continue, I didn’t know. Didn’t need to know any of this shit.
But I wanted to hold her pain, too.
Her tongue darted out to wet her lips. “He was supposed to pick me up after school that day.” Her expression deepened with the memory, her gaze focused on the picture, her voice far away. “I remember waiting and waiting and waiting. Watching for him to come around the corner. I knew he’d make a big joke about bein’ late. Make up some crazy story to make me laugh and take away my worry.” She shifted her sorrow back to me. “But he never came.”
I reached up and brushed a lock of thick blonde from the side of her face. “I’m so sorry. So fuckin’ sorry.”
I needed to stand up. Get gone. Because this was so far outside what I was equipped for. I was a prick just for kneeling there at her feet. Girl so high above me that I was a fool for wanting to reach out and touch.
Hold it.
Worse was the jealousy. This sick, sick feeling that someone’d had what was supposed to be mine.
Never said I wasn’t a twisted fuck.
Emotion tweaked the side of her face that shined with the tears that streamed, girl looking at me again like I was different. Like she was the one in awe when she was the only thing I could see.