“Promise.”
“Morena.”
She’s the only thing that matters now.
“Please. Her first.”
“Arabella.”
“Cariño…”
With a low, pained sob, he nods at me. “Okay.”
I wish it was enough to give me peace. I wish it was enough to calm my fear.
It doesn’t.
Chapter 10
Arabella
Arms close around me, hot and hard. I can’t fight their overpowering hold.
“Look at me.”
I’m dragging in breath after breath, but my lungs are so tight that it’s nowhere near enough to get my head together.
“Look at me, Arabella!” Turning me in his arms, Christopher holds me tightly to his body.
I want to push him away. To tell him to leave. But it’s impossible.
Selfishly, I need him.
When I look up at him, his brow furrows with a scowl so deep that it’s enough to renew my tears. The look he’s giving me is filled with so much contempt that it’s paralysing.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Swiping the debris of my meltdown aside on the vanity, he sits me on the countertop.
He doesn’t say anything as I feel him look down on me, his hands anchored on either side of me.
I can but breathe him in as I claw at my thighs, hoping that the pain will distract me from the fact that I am ruining everything all over again.
One of his hands cups my face, his thumb stroking the top of my cheek so tenderly. I’d forgotten how gentle he can be. How could I forget something so good?
“What are you doing, Arabella?” he repeats into my hair.
I don’t know. I thought I did. I thought I knew exactly what I had to do. But the further down that path I go, the harder it is to go on without him.
This man was my fate.
When I look up into his eyes, his breath covers my face, and it’s the best thing I’ve felt in so long. To be this close to him…
It doesn’t matter how loud the voice in my head is yelling at me that this is a mistake. It doesn’t matter that every one of his breaths reminds me of the promises I made when I walked away from him. None of that matters.
All I see is him. All I feel is the need burning inside me. The heat between us.
Grasping his jacket, I drag myself to the edge of the vanity, my legs spreading open to let him closer.
Burying my face in his chest, I inhale every spicy tone of his scent, letting it warm through me as my hands flatten to his stomach, trailing down to the top of his trousers until they close around his belt.