“You should’ve chosen me,” he murmured.
I had chosen him. Everything I’d done was me choosing him. But that wasn’t what he was talking about.
“You should’ve chosen me,” he repeated then nibbled on the lobe of my ear, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin. “Why? Why didn’t you kill me instead?”
Oh, God, Connor.
He was referring to one of Carlos’s games. The day I was forced to make a choice. Shoot Connor or one of his men.
Connor protected. It was who he was and they’d taken that from him. He remembered what he’d done while he was on the drug and it was killing him.
He’d never forgive himself.
It was why he said I chose wrong and should’ve killed him.
But no matter who they made him into, I couldn’t. And Carlos knew that.
The pulse in my neck throbbed beneath his fingertips and tingles erupted. My body recognized him and always would.
He groaned, arm holding me locked to his chest, sliding down my front then fingers skimming my bare skin between my waistband and my top. Sparks ignited as his thumb stroked back and forth just above my hip. His hand on my throat released and moved to cup my chin.
It was unyielding and harsh as he forced my head to tilt to the side and up, where our eyes met. Everything in me stilled for a split second before my heart shot off into a wild frenzy and shivers rushed through me.
“Connor,” I breathed.
He towered over me from behind, head bent, lips a breath away. Only in my fairy tale did Connor appear like this. Holding me. Looking down at me, the moonlight illuminating the side of his face. I wanted to catch this moment with my camera so I’d never lose it.
But I’d never take a photograph again. Never.
My heart had been permanently damaged when I was forced to leave him. Nothing could’ve stopped the pain and I hadn’t fought it; instead, I’d embraced it.
Craved it.
I’d needed to feel the pain of losing him over and over again. It was my reminder of him. It kept him alive within me.
Our time had been a mere breath in the wind, but I’d left with a lifetime of love. I’d walked away thinking he would spend his life doing what he loved. I’d survive Carlos and what I had to because Connor was safe.
But he wasn’t safe.
It blew up in my face the day I walked into Carlos’s living room and saw the photographs I’d taken of Connor and me strewn all over the glass coffee table.
Then my world fell apart.
My heart broke.
My insides splintered.
Disjointed. That was when it happened. Every part of me disconnected and the light went out. Darkness. Complete darkness.
Connor’s grip on me tightened and I looked up into his tumultuous blue eyes.
His brows furrowed, fingers bruising on my chin. “You were fuckin’ mine,” he said in a harsh, grated tone.
Then his mouth slammed down on mine. Our teeth hit as he claimed my lips with a sweet desperation.
And I surrendered. There was no other way. We’d never had a choice in us.
We were.
We are.
And neither of us could change that. Our link to one another was unbreakable by time, by cruelty, by drugs, or even by death.
His kiss was starved, unforgiving and cruel like what we’d both been dealt in life. But it was real. It was him and within the bruising kiss, it was beauty.
“Fuck.” His lips vibrated against mine before he pulled back abruptly, but it was only to bring me closer as he swung me around to face him. It was fast and hard, and knocked the air from my lungs when I landed against his chest. I managed a short inhale before his mouth crashed onto mine again.
Unbending.
Ravenous.
And I wanted more. God, I wanted more of him. It would never be enough. With him the hunger would never be satisfied. No matter who we’d been, our bodies knew where we belonged.
He pulled back. “Go inside. I’ll meet you there.”
I nodded then he leapt over the porch railing and disappeared in the shadows. I walked to the front door, opened the screen and it made a loud squeak. I went inside, wondering if this was right.
We were too damaged to be together.
Too broken to find our way back to what we used to be.
But when he appeared in my back hallway, strode toward me then picked me up in his arms and carried me to my bedroom, I didn’t argue.
I didn’t stop him. I didn’t ask how he knew where my bedroom was. I didn’t care.
I wanted this.
He set me on my feet then moved into me. The backs of my legs hit the mattress and I tipped backward then bounced on the bed.
He shifted to the side and I heard a clunk as he put something on the nightstand. The mattress sagged under his weight as one knee pressed into it beside my thigh then the other followed as he straddled me.