Richard took my left hand, and he let his thumb gently trace over the musical note on the inside of my wrist that I’d forever written there.
An imprint of him.
A sharp breath left me.
He inhaled it.
Sucked me down like I was the granter of life.
Our noses brushed and our chests heaved.
And I swore, in the middle of us, I saw our spirits tangle. Saw them start to dance and spiral and spin.
“Liar.” The whisper curled into the air. It was an accusation. A plea.
“I am,” he grunted. “But loving you was never one of them.”
“Or maybe it was the biggest one you ever told.”
“No,” he rasped, and a shocked gasp raked from my lungs when he swept his lips against mine.
The softest tease.
Barely there.
He pulled back a fraction, the mossy haze of those green eyes mesmerizing. Filled with something I’d be a fool to believe.
Still, we rocked in time with the quivering of the ground. With the walls that began to spin. With my heart that faltered and sped.
“Then prove it.”
Oh god, that was a reckless thing to say. Just begging for a little more devastation.
Because I saw the second he snapped. When those eyes flared in a shock of need, and his mouth was colliding with mine, his hands cupping my cheeks before one was twisting up in my braid and tugging my head back to meet the ferocity of his kiss.
I needed to push him away. Fight this. But I was opening to him, giving myself over to the desperation.
A possessive, dangerous plea.
I was lost.
Lost to the plucks and pulls of his plush, soft lips.
To the play of his tongue that stroked me into desire.
His hot, heated body pressed and urged, every inch of him hard and demanding.
We spun and shifted, both of us vying for the upper hand. I edged him out into the hall, two of us twisting and twirling, going round and round in a tug-of-war that neither of us would win.
Flames seared, and he had me banging back against the wall, the world nothing but grunts and whimpers and needy pants.
He moaned. “Violet.”
A tiny cry pulled up my throat. “Why? Why would you leave me when I needed you most?”
He kissed me deeper, his hands rushing, searching across my body. Like he could chase the questions away. Like the trembling in his palms could give me an answer.
“Hurting you was the last thing I ever wanted to do.”
My spirit wailed, and he hoisted me from my feet and plastered me to the wall.
I hit it with a thud, and my fingers drove into his hair and down to trace over his scruff. “Please. Take it away. Just take it away.”
The pain and sufferin’.
Maybe this time when he went it wouldn’t hurt so bad.
I was a fool to think it, but right then, I’d give anything for him to quell the agony.
To sate this need.
To satisfy what had been missin’.
I groaned into his kiss, rubbing myself against his body while he took handfuls of my hips. His erection pressed at my belly.
Fire lit, and god, I needed him. I needed him.
“Need you,” I rambled into his kiss.
“Violeta.” The choked, shocked voice hit us from the side.
It speared through the bubble that held us. The floor ripped right out of heaven.
I froze in dismay, and Richard jerked his head back, still pinning me to the wall while my father watched us through the shadows in pure horror.
The reality of what I’d done came crashing down.
I’d let Richard Ramsey touch me.
Had begged him for it.
Asking for the pain.
For the misery.
“You little bastard,” my father sneered. “El ladrón de la alegría.”
The thief of joy.
Richard stepped back and set me onto my wobbling feet.
His attention swung between us. Regret and guilt lashed through his expression.
I felt like I’d been doused by a vat of ice-cold water.
Woken from a blissful, perfect dream to the nightmare of what I’d done.
How could I have ever put myself in the position where he could steal it all over again?
Because there he stood with another piece of my heart in his hands.
I guessed the horrible truth of it was that he’d held it all along.ThirteenRichardI staggered back while Violet’s father glared at me like I was the antichrist.
The deliverer of wickedness and injustice.
The thief of joy.
He wouldn’t be wrong.
My head shook as I looked between the two of them, guilt clotting off the air that was trying to scrape up my throat.
Lust ravaged my body. Clawing and wailing. Seeking a way out.
Dick hard and heart hemorrhaging.
Just a fan-fucking-tastic way for her father to find me.
Thing was, I respected the man with all that I had even while he looked at me like the vile, piece of shit that I was.
Didn’t blame him a bit.
Dude deserved to hate me with every fiber of his being.
More than he already did.