“You’renota monster.”
A shudder moved through him again, more violent this time. My lips parted, a gasp escaping as he shifted and the wounds across his body sealed shut. The bruises remained, the cuts angry lines of red, but they were nothing like they had been minutes before.
“How is that possible?” I ran my finger over his bare stomach, feeling smooth skin.
Isaac winced. “It’s not as healed as it looks.”
I jerked my hand back, an apology on my lips. Isaac smothered it, mouth colliding with mine. Copper and warmth danced across my tongue. It was like I could taste the darkness of him—how it mingled with the light.
He was both at once. Two souls with one heart.
My pulse stuttered and I clutched my chest. For one breathless moment my own heart stopped beating.
Then it picked up again, frantic and urgent, and there was only one thing on this earth that I needed in that moment.
Thick arms curled around me, and even as I continued drinking from his lips, drawing him closer and closer, I sobbed.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” Isaac chanted, breaking our kiss and pressing his mouth to my forehead. “Everything is okay now.”
“It’s not okay,” I cried, hovering my hands over his mottled sides. “How can it be okay?”
A fever was rising to the surface of my skin. My legs trembled. I ached everywhere—throbbing with pain and need all at once. Without meaning to, I clutched the tattered waist of his jeans, pulling him too hard against me and nipping at his lip.
“W-what—what’s happening right now?”
Isaac’s eyes flashed that too bright color. “I think it’s the bond.”
“You think?” I forced my hands to unclench, backing away from him until I stumbled into a coffee table and plopped onto it. “You were going to die like five minutes ago. I should be putting you to bed or dressing your wounds—or something!”
That damned dimple popped in his cheek. “You want to play doctor?”
“Yes—I mean no! Look at you!”
“Do I look that good?”
My lips twitched. “I feel like you’re too far away. It’s actually making me anxious.”
Isaac took my hand, expression softening. He settled onto the couch across from me. The pained lines around his mouth sobered me instantly.
“I’m sorry, Tara. For all of it. I should have protected you—"
“Youdidprotect me. You saved my life. You almost diedprotecting me.”
“You never should have been there. We never should have left the bayou—hell, you never should have let me near you.”
Another anxious jolt in my chest. “I don’t think I could have told you no.”
“You can always tell me no,” he said seriously. “What you saw tonight—saw with Jacques—that’s not me. That will never be me.”
“I know.”
“I’ve worked hard to be different.”
“I know.”
Our eyes locked. Heat coiled between us. Tension. I had this terrible feeling that there was something unfinished, and the longer it went undone, the more heat would build inside me until I was combustible. Burning.
“Is this what it will always be like?”