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RYDEN
She was too much. Too much fire. Too much passion. A goddess of sin and seduction. I wasn’t ready for this feeling of helplessness and need.
I ached to surrender to her flames, to let her consume me, take me anywhere she desired. It’d be so easy to give in, to say yes, to have everything I wanted, to let her give me everything she wanted.
But this woman was not a sensible decision. Despite the haze of lust, I knew she could one day become a storm that could destroy me. I couldn’t allow her to be that.
It’d be prudent to stay away. Even though my brain knew that… my body wanted her. Just her. Caution be damned. Everything else be damned. Throw it all to hell and burn them down.
“I can’t.” I stood up from the couch, and she looked up at me with brown eyes that had become impossibly dark. “I’ll send you everything I have on The Strangler if you still want it,” I whispered.
I took a step away from her, knowing very well that standing closer to her wouldn’t be good for me or my sanity. I was already halfway close to doing something I knew I’d regret.
“You know that’s not all I want. You’re going to run now?” she scoffed, raking her fingers through her red hair. “I didn’t know you were a… coward.”
I bristled and growled. I hated that look in her eyes—I knew she was pushing me, checking my limits. I thought of taking her by her throat and teaching her not to talk to me like that, but… I took in a calming breath, shaking my head.
“I know what you want, but I can’t give you that. We can’t…” I paused and stared at her, her blazing eyes, her shameless smile. “It doesn’t make me a coward. I’m simply responsible.”
“Responsible, my ass,” she said with a gleaming grin, standing up from the couch with a shake of her head.
Temptress. Fucking witch.
“I wanted you when you so smugly called my report absurd, and I know you did, too. I didn’t imagine that day in the café. I know I didn’t.”
My lungs were trying to malfunction.
Not now, stupid organs. I need to breathe.
“You didn’t, but…”
“But… oh, oh shit.” She paled. “I didn’t…” Her eyes narrowed. “Do you—do you have a girlfriend?” She looked almost bewildered as she stumbled back from me. Her face went pale, and she didn’t look so strong. “Shit, I thought… no, there was nothing about a girlfriend when I…” When she realized she had said too much, she slapped her hand against her mouth. “Fuck.”
The trapped, wild look in her eyes made something in my heart clench, and it hurt. I had never felt such odd feelings in my life. What in the strange fuck was this?
“No, Yara, calm the fuck down.”
“I wouldn’t have done anything if I knew you had a girlfriend. Forgive me,” she said, wringing her hands together. It was like something had shifted, and I could see another side of her, a side she must not show often to others. “My father… he cheated on my mother, and…” she trailed off, and her eyes shuttered. “Never mind. You should leave.”
“No. I don’t have a girlfriend. I wouldn’t have touched you like that if… I had a girlfriend,” I whispered, and she let out a relieved breath.
“Oh, thank fuck. I’m glad I didn’t hurt someone like my mother was hurt,” she said with a wince. “That would be terrible.”
I took her hand in mine, looking into her eyes. “Do you want to tell me about your mother, only if you feel like it?”
She sat there for a while, her eyes lost and distant, her eyes contemplative.
“My father cheated on her.” Her voice was hesitant. She wasn’t sure whether she should tell me or not. “First in secret, and once it was out in the open, he started to bring women into their bedroom. He made a hole in her self-esteem until she was… she was nothing.”
Her nostrils flared and her eyes blazed. I saw the hint of darkness in her eyes as she grabbed her hair.
“The fucker twisted and turned her into something so distorted until she lost everything, and she just became this faded version of what she had once been, and then she… died.” She winced, rubbing her face, and I saw the little girl she was once. Her eyes were made of broken stars.
Everything in me burned to find her father. To hurt him, rip him apart until he screamed for mercy and begged for death, and then burn him down.
“I hate him.”
Pain like that never left you. Memories like that would cut a scar deep within. You could cover it with a new skin, but it’d always stay. I knew all about it. I had my scars that still hurt whenever I thought of my mother.
