His face—always rather forbidding—has grown leaner. Harsher. His body too, which used to be gracefully clad in muscle, now seems hardened and ruthless under his tuxedo, as if he’s spent the last four years trying to push-up his demons away. A permanent line has carved itself between his brows, his mouth looks like it’s never known a smile, and his eyes are the bleak blue of the coldest, deepest oceans.
He looks...empty. Grim and hollow and past all hope.
God, what happened to him?
And why does seeing him like this hurt as much as seeing him, period?
“No,” I say, to him and to my traitorous heart, taking a step to the side. Towards Ancient Levant and the staircase. Towards not-murder, and also towards not feeling all these terriblenon-murdery feelings. Feelings like I missed him, like I want to trace the pale scar on his cheek. “Don’tlittle oneme. You lost that right four years ago.”
He takes a step to match mine but goes no farther. He’s not close enough to touch me, but he’s close enough for me to see the pulse in his neck, the tic of his jaw as he works it slowly to the side.
“You said you were going back to America to live with your mother’s family,” he accuses softly. “I looked for you everywhere.”
“Well, I lied,” I say, taking another step back. The overhead gallery lights mean his long eyelashes cast shadows over his eyes, which must be why they look so haunted right now. Why he looks like he’s in pain.
“Why did you lie?”
Oh fuck him. “Why did you leave me in a church, asshole?”
He takes a step closer. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”
“What does it matter? It’s not like I’m going to show up in your classroom and beg you to finish what you started, it’s not like it can make a single bit of difference. It’sover—”
His eyes flash at that, and suddenly he’s close, too close, close enough that if he wanted, he could slide those strong, archaeologist’s hands around my hips and yank me against him. Yank me up so I could wrap my legs around his waist.
Just the thought of it has heat flushing all over me, tightness twisting between my thighs.
Scared of my body’s reaction to him, I stumble back and away. He lets me, but he doesn’t stop prowling closer and closer, stalking me until I’m literally backed against a wall.
He stops, just out of reach, and stares at me like I’m a virgin chained to his altar.
“It’s not over,” he says with so much raw determination that I almost believe him.
“It is,” I say, for myself as much as for him. “It is, and you’re the one who ended it.”
He sucks in a breath at that, closing his eyes for a single moment, before opening them again. “Why are you working here?” he asks. “You should be in a doctoral program. You should be in the field or the lab or in your own classroom. Not as a—” he makes a vague gesture at my uniform, like even the act of articulating the wordserveris beneath him.
“You gave up the right to know what I’m doing with my life at the same time you gave up the right to call me yours.” I fold my arms over my chest and try to muster my best glare while my face is still wet with tears.
Tears that seem to horrify and fascinate him all at the same time.My depraved Church, my angry god—
No. Not my Church.
“Let me kiss you,” he says abruptly.
I stare at him like he’s a lunatic, and he has to be, because there’s no way in hell...
He steps forward, close enough that our shoes bump, and I can smell him. I can smell the incense scent of him and I can count each individual eyelash fanning above his lapis-colored eyes. “No,” I say, a little distractedly. “You could have had a kiss at the altar, and then every day after that. You have any idea how often I would have kissed you if I’d been your wife? You called me a supplicant before, but I would have been a zealot for you. I would have kissed your throat every morning and your feet every night, and you would have been anointed hourly by my mouth.Yougave that up, Church, not me.”
His voice is honest and bare when he answers, “Not a day goes by when I don’t think about what I could have had, Charlotte. You think I didn’t want your zeal? Your mouth on my throat and feet? You think I still don’t want it?”
I should push back. I should say I don’t care what he wanted or what he wants. But fuck if being wanted by him isn’t as intoxicating as it ever was, and the admission of his desire has hot knots of excitement tying themselves in my stomach.
He nudges closer, one shiny dress shoe pressing between my feet, and his mouth now inches from mine. “Simply one kiss,” he murmurs, his stare hot on my mouth. “Surely I owe you that? At the very least?”
“You owe me everything,” I whisper.
His eyes darken. “I know,” he says.