I returned a nod. “I think so, too. She doesn’t want a thing to slow her down.”
A soft smile played across those full, lush lips that sent a tremor racing through me, the shadows in the room dancing along with it. “Not sure a thing could. She’s a force to be reckoned with.”
I fiddled with my fingers. “She sure is.”
God, this was awkward and horrible. Because I needed him to leave and the only thing I wanted to do was beg him to stay.
A fool.
A fool.
“She’s tough. A fighter,” Richard grumbled in this low drawl. Showing just a hint of that southern accent he’d all but lost. “Brave.”
He touched her forehead.
Gently.
Looking down at her with affection.
With this adoration I didn’t understand.
My heart tumbled in my chest.
He ran his fingertips down her chubby cheek, and it was sorrow that came spilling out of his mouth, “Beautiful. So damn beautiful, Vi.”
I gulped for the nonexistent air, and shivers raked through the length of my body.
Hurt wept from my soul, colliding with the old love I’d buried deep, where I’d held it there knowing it would never die.
It’d been too big and beautiful to ever succumb into nothingness, yet not strong enough to keep him there.
Had he been immune to it?
Had it been fake?
My stomach toiled in rejection because it’d felt so real to me that him not feeling it too seemed impossible.
Richard straightened, his spine going rigid, every muscle in that gorgeous body flexing and bowing as if he’d just gotten pummeled by every thought I’d had.
As if he felt the turmoil.
Did he know? Did he know?
“I should go,” he said, barely able to glance at me. “I sent Rhys a text to pick me up. He should be here in a bit.”
I nodded frantically. “Okay. Thank you.” The last two words gushed out.
True in their form.
Thank you. Thank you.
He edged my way. Each step sent a tremor rocking through my body. Sage eyes caressed me slow. Lust and greed and shame.
He came to a stop just to the side of where I stood, and he angled in low, rough words grazing my ear, “Don’t thank me, Violet. We both know I’m to blame.”
There was no questioning what he was referring to had nothing to do with what had happened today.
He ripped himself away and headed out the door.
I squeezed my eyes closed almost as hard as I squeezed my fists. Praying for sanity. I could almost hear my daddy calling, Make good choices.
But I wasn’t feeling quite so rational right then.
I guessed that sometimes things just needed to be said. They could no longer be held or quieted or contained.
Pulse a thunder, I rushed out into the hall where Richard was getting ready to take the stairs. “I didn’t think I was going to make it. When you left me, when you walked away, I didn’t think I would make it.”
He froze, his hand on the railing, his head tipping toward the ground.
Impaled by my confession. Bound by the pain that bled through the admission. While I remained in the darkness of the hall. Wishing I could hide.
From what he’d done.
From the way he still made me feel.
From the fact he was there, destroying me all over again.
Richard warred. His lithe body rippled, sinewy muscle flexing and bowing and twitching.
With restraint or repulsion, I couldn’t tell which.
But I realized I had none of it.
Restraint.
“How could you just wake up one day and not love me anymore?” The words quivered and shook with hushed misery. “Because I’m still waitin’ on the day when I wake up and I’m no longer in love with you.”
I had no time to prepare myself.
No time to put back up the walls I’d let down.
Richard was there, a phantom that moved through the shadows.
A plunderer.
A thief.
My love. My life. My greatest downfall.
He pressed me to the wall and planted his hands above my head, that tall, strong body a fortress where it hovered over mine.
Flames leapt, the air charged.
A thousand volts of electricity.
He breathed out a harsh sound, the force of it covering me in his raw, potent energy.
Trapping me in that haze of seduction that had always hypnotized me. From the first second we’d met.
Crackles of need. Sparks of lust.
His nose ran along the curve of my jaw.
Inhaling.
Savoring.
Remembering.
Tingles raced, and my belly flipped.
My heart was beating so out of control I could feel the storm of it bashing at my rib cage.
Richard’s was, too, this erratic drum, drum, drum that called to me.
Violent and fierce.
A warrior’s song.
This was wrong. So wrong. I needed to shove him off. Cling to the reality of what he’d done.
Feelings were fleeting.
But the impact of heinous acts were not.
Thing was, I couldn’t react. I couldn’t move a muscle when his words were coming at me like a drug. “How could one lie negate a thousand truths?”