14. Vaughn #2
With my arms hanging uselessly at my sides, unable to hold her to me, unable to draw her in, I asked, “Who were they?”
“I told you that already.”
“Tell me again. Tell me to go in there and punch him in the mouth, and I will. Tell me, Alba.”
Finally, she looked at me. Her eyes were blue, blue, blue, and terribly unhappy. She was beautiful and sad and I wanted to fix it.
“He’s the reason I broke off my engagement. I thought?—”
“I’ll kill him.”
She rolled her eyes. “Stop it.”
“I’m serious.” And I was. I’d been joking before, mostly, but if she told me he hurt her and she wanted revenge, I’d walk right back into that pretentious fucking restaurant and stab him in the neck with his own fork.
But then her gaze was on me, and some of the sadness in her eyes had ceded to faint amusement. “You’ll never convince me you’re some kind of crime lord, Vaughn.”
“Plausible deniability. Smart.”
Her lips tried to curl, and she shook her head. “I’m fine. I’m good. I just—I wasn’t expecting to see him. Them, together. I’m sorry.”
Unable to resist any longer, I lifted my hands to rub her upper arms. “Don’t apologize. Not for that.”
She swallowed, and when she leaned into me and rested her forehead against my shoulder, my breath caught in my lungs. I was afraid to breathe in case she backed away again. Moving slowly, I wrapped my arms around her and felt her sigh, her breath warm against my neck.
“We were…seeing each other,” she said, her voice so quiet I had to strain over the sound of the cars beside us. “James and I.” She sighed, her body slight and fragile in the cradle of my arms.
“Did he hurt you?” I asked, my voice strange even to my own ears.
Alba shook her head, her forehead rotating on my shoulder. “Not the way you mean. He just—” She gusted out another breath. “I thought he loved me, but he really just wanted my parents’ money. I got in a car accident and ended up in the hospital, you know.”
I nodded. I’d read about that.
“I wasn’t seriously hurt, but it clarified a lot of things for me.
” She shivered, pressing herself against me.
“I knew I couldn’t marry Cole. I thought James…
I thought James and I would be together.
He wasn’t from a well-to-do family. He didn’t have much.
But we were happy. Or so I thought. Our relationship was all phone calls and messages.
We’d only actually seen each other a handful of times.
But he came to see me in the hospital the day I broke off my engagement.
Got there just minutes after Cole left. He met my mother for the first time, and it was a disaster.
She was distraught about Cole. James was polite, and I thought… I thought…”
She closed her eyes against the memory.
“He broke up with you after?” I asked, voice low and angry.
The laugh that came out of Alba was so bitter it was almost unrecognizable.
She shook her head, her forehead rubbing against my shoulder.
“No. He slept with me, and then he broke up with me. He made me feel like what we had was real long enough that I’d finally get in bed with him after all those months of talking and dreaming and wishing, and then when we were still lying there, naked, he told me it wasn’t going to work between us.
Said he’d call me a ride so I could go home. ”
A low, burning anger built in my gut. “Coward.”
“Opportunist, mostly.”
“Shameless, spineless worm.” I lowered my head so my face was next to hers, so I felt the bunching of her cheek as she smiled. My arms were still around her, and she’d stopped pretending not to lean on me.
I felt the rightness of her here, in my arms, and I never wanted it to end. When she pulled away a fraction to look up at me, I didn’t give her space. Didn’t step back.
Instead, I lifted a hand to her cheek and swept the moisture from beneath her eye with the tip of my thumb.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“I haven’t killed him yet.”
A wry smile. “Please don’t.”
“Only if you insist.”
In my arms, she felt slight and fragile. Nothing like the whirlwind of personality and snark and wit that I’d come to know. It was like that one interaction had sucked the life out of her, and it wasn’t right.
My hand was still on her cheek. Pedestrians passed by us on either side; cars slowed to a stop when the lights turned red behind me. Her lips were inches from mine, her lashes clumped together with the tears she’d tried to squeeze back from falling.
Beautiful, strong, brittle, breakable woman. I’d never met anyone like her.
I dipped my head, the side of my nose touching the side of hers.
“Vaughn…” Her breath shivered against my lips, but she didn’t pull away.
I brushed my mouth against hers, a whisper of a touch. Barely a kiss. She shivered, her eyes falling closed, and I pulled away an inch. Her clumped, wet lashes left smudges of mascara on the high points of her cheeks, and when she looked up at me again, I knew I had to stop lying to myself.
I wasn’t going to be able to keep my hands off her, and I was sick of trying.
Eyes on hers, I lowered my head again and kissed her. She let out a sigh, her fingers curling into the lapels of my overcoat, her mouth parting to let in my delving tongue. She tasted like red wine and the pepper from her meal, and I wanted to kiss her until I tasted only her.
I groaned as she curled her hands around my neck, her fingers stroking my nape, nails digging into me.
I wanted her to mark me, to leave half-moon indents in my skin so I’d feel the sting of her for the rest of the day.
I wanted her angry and snarky and mean, because it was better than hollow and dead-eyed and running away from me.
Her body melted into me, and I forgot about the cold nipping at my ears and the cars spraying slush over the curb.
Yes. This was right. She was right.
I would let her distract me until my business fell down around me, because kissing her made me feel like I was flying.
She pulled away first, dazed, panting, her hands still on my neck. “We weren’t supposed to do that.”
“I know,” I said. “Let’s do it again.”