CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE #3
She bobbed her head with a frantic nod, her attention solely on me. “I-I’m listening.”
"You are going to get married today. I know you don't want to—I don’t want you to—but I promise you, it's not forever.
You will not spend the rest of your life tormented by that fucking asshole.
And I don't know how I'm going to fix this, but I swear to you—I swear on my life—I will," I declared, as if reciting my own vows beneath the canopy of this gazebo overlooking the water and the boats we'd watched when we were so, so much younger.
“Do you understand me? You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be okay, and I am going to make sure that happens.”
She lifted her hands to grip my arm, and she held tight as she replied, "I believe you."
My phone buzzed from my pocket, and without reading the message, I knew our time was about up.
"You will get the chance to live the life you deserve, Analise." Even if I can't be a part of it. "But right now, you have to go."
She blinked, casting a few tears to blaze trails down her flushed cheeks. "Will you do something for me first?"
I began to shake my head, ready to protest, when she gripped my arm tighter and begged, "Please, please, just one more thing, and then, I promise, I will go."
"What is it?" I asked with resignation right before she presented her request.
She held my gaze and grasped my arm like it was her last lifeline as she asked, "Will you kiss the bride?"
I took an involuntary step away from her, certain I hadn’t heard her correctly. I couldn’t have. She knew as well as I did that, even though our attraction and spiritual connection were indisputable, nothing good would come from us acting upon it. She wasn’t a stupid woman. She knew the risks.
Yet she continued to stare at me with wide-eyed hope, her bottom lip trapped between her teeth, and I exhaled as I shook my head.
“Fucking hell," I groaned, closing my eyes and turning away. "I can't do that. You know—"
"I'll close my eyes!" she promised, frantic and desperate. "Please, oh God, please do this for me. I don't want to sign my life away without knowing what it's like to kiss a man I actually—"
"Okay," I hurried to say, rushing to stop her from saying the word I was sure she was about to say. Not wanting to hear it, not wanting her to admit the dreadful truth. "Okay. But fast. We make this fast, and then you go."
Her eyes lit with excitement and anticipation as she nodded eagerly. "Yes. I swear."
I released her from my hold and took a step back as I quickly undid my tie. My phone buzzed once again from my pocket, but there was no time to look as I ordered her to turn around. She complied easily, her hands shaking anxiously at her chest.
Mine shook as well while I blindfolded her with the tie from my neck.
She’s going to get me killed if anyone finds out about this, I thought. But at least maybe I’ll die a happy man.
"Do not take this off," I warned, and she nodded.
"I won't, I promise."
Then, for the first time in her presence, for the first time as adults, for the first time as Bram and Analise … I pulled off my mask and inhaled deeply to capture the scent of her hair—a bouquet of amber, lavender, and vanilla—carried along the ocean breeze.
I gripped her shoulders and turned her around to face me.
My silk tie, as deep as the night itself, looked sinful against the white of her veil.
My fingers itched, the gloves suddenly too heavy, and I realized, if this was going to happen, if my lips were going to know the feel of hers, then there was no reason at all why my fingertips couldn't also know the feel of her skin.
So, I took them off as well to tuck them into my back pocket with the mask.
I have to hurry up.
She needed to leave, and I needed to disappear, but all I longed for was time to stand still, just for a moment.
Just to give me long enough to appreciate this moment with the sea breeze on my skin and her standing before me, eager and so unabashedly happy, just before her world was about to explode.
And mine.
But time froze for nobody, and before I could waste another second of it, I laid my bare palm against her cheek, relished in the sound of her gasp before she leaned into the caress, her expression contorting with anguish and longing.
“It’s not fair,” she whispered.
“No,” I whispered back. “Nothing ever is.”
I tipped her chin upward and brushed my thumb across the line where her lips met, her flesh soft and supple.
"Cigarettes and … mint," she whispered, breathless.
"What?" I asked, angling my mouth toward hers.
"That's what your breath smells like."
I couldn't help but huff a chuckle. "I'm sorry."
"No," she replied. "I like it. It's exactly what I would’ve expected."
"You expected my breath to smell like an eighty-year-old chain smoker with decent oral hygiene?"
She smiled against the pad of my thumb. "Something like that."
We were wasting time. I couldn't allow another moment to escape my greedy grasp.
So, without another second to spare, I kissed her, pressing my lips hard against hers and stealing her breath away.
She lifted her hands to press her palms to my cheeks, and through a surge of anxious fear of being somehow found out and recognized, I took her wrists in my hands and pulled them away.
"Please," she begged in a whisper against my lips. “Let me touch you. Just for a minute.”
I opened my eyes to see hers were still covered by my tie, and I allowed the concern to dissipate as I laid her hands back against my bristled jaw.
She reached with outstretched fingertips for my face, moving her hands from my cheeks to my neck to dance along my hairline.
“Why do I feel like I’ve waited my entire life for this moment?” she whispered, her voice trembling. “Why do I feel like I know you and your hands and your—”
“Stop thinking, Princess,” I murmured, my lips moving against hers.
She moved her head in a subtle nod as she tangled her fingers in the depths of my hair, tethering herself to me as she kissed me again, parting her lips and accepting my tongue.
The passion of the moment, the things I accepted and allowed my heart to feel for her, crushed against my chest and rattled my soul.
Awakening something primal and desperate as our hands grasped and tugged, hopeless with a need for closeness as the reality of our situation hung over our heads like a dark, damning cloud.
It was the first kiss I’d ever wanted to have, and it never should’ve happened.
I held my hands to her cheeks and wrestled my lips away from hers.
I laid my forehead against hers and whispered, "You have to go now."
She exhaled with a sob. "No," she uttered in a pleading whisper. “I don’t want to. I don’t want to do this.”
"I know … but you have to," I argued before pressing one last kiss to her forehead.
With great regret and restraint, I took a step back and put a dreaded distance between us, knowing that, from this moment forward, everything would be different.
We were changed. The line we’d been dancing along for years—the one separating the sides of what was acceptable and prohibited—was now faded, and there would be no going back to the way things had been before.
But she’ll be married soon, I thought, my eyes lingering on her lips, now bruised and swollen, the evidence of our forbidden desire. And if I’m lucky, Gerald will kill me.
Death would be merciful compared to the torment he’d likely put me through.
Quickly, I pulled the mask and gloves back on as Dean hurried toward the gazebo, a look of silent determination on his face.
And there was something else in his eyes too.
Something I hadn’t seen before.
"You've been ignoring your phone, sir," he accused me, obviously bothered and, dare I say, worried. "Lisey, we have to go. Now."
And from the way he spoke to her, I recognized what that something else was.
Fear.
I removed my tie from her eyes and tucked it into my suit jacket pocket. She blinked, her eyes staring up at me, wide and mystified, as if I alone had cast a spell upon her.
"Go with him, Princess," I told her.
She hesitated to nod, but she did. And as she took a step backward toward the edge of the gazebo, she admitted in a trembling whisper, "Jekyll, I'm scared."
"I know," I said. "But remember what I told you. It's not forever. I will save you."
This time, I mean it.
She was reluctant to nod, but eventually, she did, then turned in a hurry, severing our connection quickly as she left the gazebo's protective cover.
I watched her take the few steps toward the sidewalk, and as I felt something hard and cold wedge against the base of my skull, I felt not fear, but peace.
Because at the very least, I had found her, the girl who had brought me the sweetest memories, but also my most haunting nightmares. The girl who had somehow turned into the woman I yearned for, the woman who I now knew tasted like …
"Cinnamon," I called out as the solid barrel of a gun notched itself tighter against my skull.
Analise turned around, and I guessed whoever Gerald had asked to retrieve me was hidden enough behind my body because she didn't look at all worried or afraid as she asked, "What?"
"That's what you taste like," I told her. "Cinnamon."
My new favorite flavor.
She found it in herself to smile that wide, happy grin, the one she had when thinking about the boy in her past, and she replied, "Cigarettes and mint."
Then she turned, hurrying along beside Dean to make it to a wedding she didn't want, to marry a man who was going to make her life a living hell until I figured out a way to stop him.
And just as she vanished from sight, something hard and heavy hit the back of my head, and the world went black.