“Carter.” His name shatters on my lips. “Don’t.”
“Don’t?”
“Don’t say anymore,” I whisper. “Just kiss me. Can’t that be enough for now? Just kiss me and… Please, whatever you do, just… don’t say those sort of things to me anymore.”
He pulls back, a fissure appearing between his eyes when he finally takes in the look on my face, the tension in my body. His voice is heartbreakingly vulnerable when he whispers, “Why?”
“Because it’ll only make it harder.”
“Make what harder?”
My throat convulses, a violent spasm of muscle. I try to say the words in a clear voice, but it cracks halfway through. “Walking away.”
The look of hurt and betrayal that flashes across his face will haunt me for the rest of my life.
Don’t you understand,I want to scream.Last time, it was just sex, and leaving you damn near killed me. So if you say all these perfect things to me… if we let it be about more than just a physical urge… if we let our hearts catch up to our bodies… I don’t think I’ll survive when it inevitably ends.
His hands drop away from me like I’ve scalded him. He takes a full step backward, as though he can’t bear to touch me, anymore. “Right.My mistake. I thought things were different, this time. But I see we’re right back where we were before.”
“Carter, don’t say that. It’s not true.”
“Isn’t it, though? What’s changed, exactly?” His gorgeous features are twisted in a hateful glare. “You fuck me in a greenhouse, then you walk away; you kiss me on a castle turret, then you walk away. End result is always the same. The only thing that’s different is, this time I didn’t even get the benefit of an orgasm out of our little arrangement.”
My tears are picking up speed, pouring from my eyes with alarming velocity. “Don’t do that.”
“What am I doing, Emilia?”
“Don’t… cheapen it. Don’t twist it into something it’s not.”
“Then tell me whatitis. Define it for me.” He pauses, eyes wild with fury. “You can’t, can you? Because you know as well as I do that you can’t define something that doesn’t exist.”
A sob bursts out.
God, I cannot take this anymore. I’m not strong enough. Another minute and I’m going to forget all my resolve and fall into his arms, damn the repercussions.
“And so she cries,” he says coldly, watching my tears fall. He claps his hands together in a slow, mocking show of applause. “Bravo. What a stellar performance. You’re almost convincing me you care.”
“Of course I care!” I dash the tears from my cheeks. “You act like I’m enjoying this, like it’s somehow easy for me—”
“You think it’s easy forme?” he growls back, anger boiling to the surface. “You think it’s easy wanting the one girl who is, quite literally, the last person on earth I can ever be with, for a whole myriad of reasons? You think I’m having fun, watching you slip a little further out of my reach each day? You think I enjoy seeing the parade of delivery boys bringing you flowers from men who you’re actually allowed to contemplate a future with?”
Another sob rattles in my throat. “What do you want me to do, Carter? How can I make this right? Please enlighten me, because I’m at a loss. Give me the solution. Do you have one? Or are you too busy blaming me for this whole fucked up scenario to actually consider where I’m coming from?”
We’re both glaring, now, our gazes tangled together in a firestorm of rage and hate and love and lust and need and resentment and longing and pain. A molten-hot medley that’s liable to incinerate us both on this bitterly cold night.
“Tell me what to say, and I’ll say it,” I whimper, my voice a pathetic shell of itself. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
“Then answer one question. Honestly.”
I nod, unable to speak.
He takes a half-step closer, but is careful not to touch me. His eyes, though — I feel them everywhere, on every part of me.
“Do you want to be with me, Emilia?”
“It’s not that simple and you know it…”
“It is, though.Do you want to be with me? Yes or no? If it’s yes… we’ll figure it out. We’ll find a way through. Together.”