“I wanted to get you another one. A different story to take its place.”
“We drove hours and hours to get a book?” she questions silently, her eyes beseeching me to explain why.
“This is the only place I found on the East Coast that carried unknown books-”
“I don’t want to read another tragedy,” she says and cuts me off. “I don’t want to risk it.”
“You’re going to want to though, cailín tine.”
A second passes and I swear I can hear her heart beating, waiting in limbo for more.
“These books all came from one person’s home years ago. She collected stories that made her feel loved.”
Bethany turns her attention back to the books, back to the stories I want her to read.
“I brought you here because they call this the aisle of hope.”
Seth
With her legs crossed like that, her red skirt rides up higher. It draws my eye and as she clears her throat, noticing my wandering gaze, I let the smirk appear on my lips before carelessly covering it with my hand.
It’s been too long since I’ve been this close to her, face to face. Too many years since she’s sought me out.
My stubble is rough beneath my fingertips; it’ll leave small scratches against her soft skin when I ravage her with the hunger I’ve had for so long.
“Did you hear what I said?” Laura asks. When she got into my car with Bethany, I could feel the waves of apprehension hidden in the silence, the lust that roared back to life when Bethany left us. And we made a deal.
“You said you wanted an exchange. You want to change the details of our deal.”
Her doe eyes beg me to consider, and they hold a vulnerability that her tense curves fail to deliver. She grips both arms of the chair across from me as her chest rises and falls with a quickened pace. She can’t hide the fear of coming back to this life. Of coming back to me.
As her bottom lip slips between her teeth, I note that she can’t hide the desire either.
“I’ve wanted this for too long to consider your proposal,” I tell her, spreading my legs wider and leaning forward in my office chair in the back room of the bar. My elbows rest on my knees as I lean closer to her, only inches away as I whisper, “You know what I want.”
“I can give you something you want more,” she speaks clearly, although her last words waver when her gaze drifts to my lips.
Lies. There’s nothing I want more.
I would have told her that and meant it with every bone in my body, but then she tells me, “I can give you Marcus.”