Chapter 13 #2
“One year.” He took a step back. Then he began to prowl the confines of her room.
Skimming his fingers over the spines of books.
Touching a faded quilt that sat near what she strongly suspected had been her favorite reading chair.
How could it not be? Oversized, tucked in the corner, with a lamp perched nearby and a footstool just waiting beside it.
“I held onto hope for a solid year,” he told her.
“Even as fear grew in my heart, and I understood that…you were probably gone. Dead.”
I’m not. I’m right here.
“When you reached the estate, when you walked in, I’d finally given voice to the fear that haunted me.
I said you were dead.” His gaze lingered on her bed.
Four-poster. With a canopy. An antique that had gleaming wood, as if it were carefully polished.
Probably was. Victor probably made sure it stayed polished.
Without looking back at her, he said, “I knew I was obsessed, you see. Keeping this place exactly as you left it. Keeping it ready in case you walked in the door…”
I did just walk in the door.
“I bought the house, Melody.”
Her lips parted. She didn’t know what to say.
“You were gone. No one was paying the mortgage. You’d saved up, and you’d worked so hard to get this home on your own.
Sebastian never gave you a dime for it, and, honestly, when you vanished, I don’t think he even remembered the place half the time.
His condition—hell, baby, it took so much away from him. ”
A lump rose in her throat.
“I bought the property because when you came back, I needed your home to be ready.” He looked down, as if seeming to just realize his hands had fisted. “At the Mage estate, Dario was saying it was time to sell your house. He wanted you out of the will. He wanted everyone to move on.”
“I-I heard…” Like those words hadn’t felt like knives sinking into her.
His head whipped up. His shoulders squared. “You need to know…I was going to do it.”
She blinked quickly, hating that stupid tears wanted to fill her eyes.
“I wasn’t going to stop looking for you, don’t mistake me on that point.
I would never have stopped looking. Never.
But I knew I couldn’t keep this place like a shrine for you much longer.
” A vague wave of his hand. “Hell, I get that I’m obsessed.
Even the cops thought I was. Though they had no clue just how deep that obsession truly runs when it comes to you.
” A muscle jerked along his jaw. “Sometimes, I’d come here just to fucking be closer to you.
At first, the home still smelled like you.
” He wrenched around. Lurched to the dresser.
Picked up a bottle of perfume. “Champagne and vanilla. With just a hint of honeysuckle. Your signature scent. You didn’t blow cash on a lot, but you always had to wear this perfume.
” He set the perfume back down. A little too hard.
It clinked when the glass hit the wood of the dresser’s top.
She should say something. Do something.
A slow exhale blew from him. Victor rolled back his shoulders.
“I’m not rational when it comes to you. You need to understand that.
I want to grab you and hold you and take you away from every threat in the world.
” His gaze pinned her. So, so dark and possessive.
“I do want to handcuff you to me. I wasn’t joking or just threatening with that shit before.
I have to know that you’re safe. I have to make sure you’re tied to me.
I want to fly you to Vegas. Marry you. Spend the rest of my life with you.
” Now he began to stalk back to her. “I want to tie you to me in every possible way because I cannot lose you again.”
She could not move.
Victor closed the space between them with hard, deliberate steps.
“I am not an easy man, Melody.”
She wet her lips. “Yes, I got that impression.”
The faint lines near his mouth deepened. “Once, you loved me despite that fact. The rest of the world thought I was a cold-blooded, dangerous bastard. But you still loved me.”
Her boots pressed harder into the floor as she found herself leaning toward him. Drawn, no, pulled, to him.
“I will get you to love me again. No matter what it takes. I did it before. I can do it again.” An absolute vow. “Though I am probably fucking scaring you to death with my obsession—”
“I thought I didn’t matter to anyone,” Melody cut through his words. “Days passed. Weeks. Months. No one came for me. I didn’t think anyone looked.” It had been like the whole world forgot her.
“I looked. You will always matter to me.”
She believed him. Something seemed to break apart inside of her.
She could almost hear the shattering. Maybe it was the ice around her heart.
The ice that had trapped her for so long.
Because she’d been locked away. In so much pain and all alone.
So sure that no one had cared. That she’d been forgotten.
As she forgot everyone and everything.
But this man—this man had never forgotten.
She surged toward him. Her hands grabbed his shoulders.
She pulled him down and his mouth locked onto hers.
And it was the same—the very same way it had been the last time they kissed.
Desire blasted through her blood. A white-hot need and burning lust that obliterated the cold.
Her tongue slipped into his mouth. Tasted him, and when he growled for her, the rough, primitive sound just made her want him all the more.
Right then. Right there.
His fingers curled around her waist. But he didn’t haul her even closer, as she wanted him to do. Instead, his grip tightened, and his head wrenched up as he took that sexy mouth of his away from her. “What are you doing?” he rasped.
She’d thought it was obvious. “Fuck is your favorite word,” she reminded him.
His eyes narrowed.
“So fuck me right now, Victor. Fuck me—”
He lifted her up and carried her to the bed.