My heart pounded.
The whiskey made me nauseous.
Her touch made me reckless.
Hope watched me as if she was there to break me from my prison and believed words could be the key. But I watched her from that prison, cloaked in darkness that’d been brewing inside me for months. A darkness that came from passion and rage, not life or death.
A passion that stirred and heated and infected my bloodstream the longer she touched me.
Anger added to the sickening mix.
Anger at my fear, my entrapment, my repetitive thoughts.
She made it sound so goddamn easy.
Accept it and you’re free.
It wasn’t that simple.
“Just accept, Jacob,” she whispered, adding another layer of fuel to my already burning temper. “Just accept…me.”
I lost it.
The whiskey thought for me. The alcohol removed my rules. And my hand swooped up to cup her throat.
She gasped as I curled my fingers tighter around the delicate column of her neck. She said I was life and death, and she was right. I could take her life so easily. No one would know or stop me.
Her pulse jumped erratically beneath my thumb. Her skin hot and soft and fragile.
The chain from her locket tickled my fingertips as I pulled her closer.
Her gaze dropped to my mouth, and something ricocheted through me. Something powerful and desperate and greedy…
Yanking her into me, I smashed my lips on hers. The faint taste of blood tainted the kiss as our teeth clacked, and her mouth parted in welcome.
I did what she asked me to do.
I gave in.
I let the liquor cut my morals as I jerked her onto my lap. Our kiss turned hard, deep, fast. Her body lost its stiffness, liquefying. Her lips slipped against mine, and her breath caught as her hands swooped to dig nails into my scalp.
I no longer saw or breathed or existed.
I was merely there.
An inconsequential piece of life, giving in to the natural symmetry of mating…surviving.
My thoughts collided and tangled as her tongue licked mine and her moan encouraged me to take more.
I lost all sense of where I was.
What I was.
Who I was.
Thanks to the whiskey, I did what Grandpa told me and lived right now.
I came alive in Hope’s arms.
No half-life. No cursed life.
Just life.
I slid against the wall, taking her with me, letting gravity feed her to the floor where I sprawled on top of her.
Her legs spread, her breath catching as I slotted between them.
Our kiss turned wild and careless. Nips of teeth and curls of tongues.
I was drunk on her as well as whiskey.
Her fingernails scratched either side of my spine, dragging me deeper into her.
And, instead of fighting, I let her control me.
I shoved aside everything else.
All thoughts.
All phobias and pains.
There was nothing.
Just Hope.
“Fuck.” I fisted a handful of her hair, deliberately drowning in her. And she welcomed me to swim deeper, to dive into her heart and sink to the bottom where I would never be alone.
Her hands roamed down my back, dropping to my jeans pockets and squeezing my ass, tugging me forward and into her. Her delicious heat short-circuited everything that made me human.
Her slender strength turned me on. Her fight and stubbornness made me hard.
My body sank lower, crushing her to cobbles and thrusting my vicious need against her. My thoughts scattered even further, leaving me love-starving and chaos-free. It was as if, in her embrace, death couldn’t find me.
Our tongues danced faster.
Our hands groped harder.
There was no finesse or permissions.
Just raw, basic need.
But then fate intervened.
Fate decided to remind me I would never be free.
Mid-kiss, Hope coughed.
And I levitated off her in a single heartbeat.
She coughed again, wincing as she did her best to stop.
Each inhale and cough, she twined electrical wire around my heart and electrocuted me.
Defibrillating the useless muscle until there was no more whiskey, no more desire in my blood.
Just stark, terrified horror.
“Are you sick?” I tripped away, stumbling in my haste.
A cough.
Memories of hospitals and racking fits and medicines that couldn’t cure slithered into my mind.
Threading both hands into my hair, I pulled hard, wishing I could crack open my skull and stop the past.
Hope scrambled to her feet, her lips red and hand reaching for me, imploring me to stay with her. “I’m not sick.”
“Why the hell did you cough then?” I paced the small stable, growing crazed with claustrophobia.
“It’s just…um…” Her eyes flew around the space. “Hay dust.”
Everything shut down.
How many times had I heard such lies?
Don’t worry, Wild One, it’s just allergies.
That cough? Oh, it’s nothing, just pollen.
Sore throat, that’s all, kiddo.
Stop fretting, it’s just a cold.
Lies.
Lies.
Lies.
“Jacob. Don’t. It’s nothing. I promise.” Hope came toward me, placing soft fingers on my forearm. “Please.”
I shook her off. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not. Truly.” Her green gaze glittered.
Was it from fever? Was that why her cheeks were redder than normal and her voice scratchy?