Page 83 of The Fallen One

I couldn’t help but whisper the first thought that came to mind. “Why does everything somehow feel like it keeps leading back to your wife?”

Carter lifted his hands from his pockets and took a step toward me, only to lock his arms tight at his sides and refrain from what I was pretty sure he almost did. What he wanted to do. What I wanted him to do.

Hold me.

His brow furrowed as he said in a somber tone, “Rebecca was my wife.”

That past tense clarification seemed to be a thousand words all rolled into one. And yet, I still couldn’t translate it, or the look in his eyes.

“So, um.” I backed up a few steps, finding myself flush up against the wall. “My mom doesn’t really blame you for her death?” Not important in the grand scheme of things, but it mattered to me.

“I’m pretty sure she’ll always blame me one way or another. Maybe I do, too.” That heartbreaking tone, God help me, it hurt to hear him talk like that.

“No.” He carried such a huge burden, and his shoulders may have been broad and strong, but it was still too much for only one person. “I don’t know how she died, but I know it wasn’t your fault. You love her.”

“Loved.” There was the past tense again, opening like a black hole about to suck me straight through.

Energy really didn’t lie, but it wasn’t being straightforward right now either. I was confused at how he felt toward me, and what he was saying without saying it. “Do you get your life back when this is over? Your name cleared?”

“What life?” he asked, almost a hint of sarcasm there. But I didn’t take him for a sarcastic guy, so maybe his knee-jerk response was to mask his true feelings. As if realizing I was reading him a little too well, he tacked on, “Don’t worry about me, please. Let’s focus on what we can control.”

“So much easier said than done when I’m in the process of spinning out.”

“You’re a survivor, Diana.” He’d said the same in the shower, hadn’t he? If only I could remember those moments a bit more clearly. “What you went through today, and yet you’re still looking at me like . . .” He turned his cheek, breaking our eye contact. Almost as if he was uncomfortable, or maybe searching for how to continue.

“How am I looking at you?” Did I just echo back something he’d said to me that morning, too. Were we in déjà vu territory? Past lives? Hell, I wasn’t sure what I believed in anymore, but I knew I had a connection to this man beyond this mission and our other encounters.

Facing me again with slanted brows, he removed my glasses and held them between us. “Do these things have magical powers?”

“What do you mean?” I murmured, my heart finding a comfortable home in my throat. We were close, so close, the air between us practically hummed with that energy.

“They seem to shield you from the darkness of the world.” His eyes boxed me into that moment, and I was helpless to move or think. “They protect you from seeing me for who I really am.”

I shook my head, and did my best to formulate coherent thoughts and voice them. “No. If anything, they help me see clearly.” Unable to stop myself, I took his face between my palms. The scruff on his face, a week or so old given the look of it, was softer than I expected. Despite the tight clench of his jaw beneath my touch, I didn’t let him go. “I can see the real you, Carter.”

He rotated his neck, and I followed the path of his movement, refusing to lose hold of him as he warned in a low voice, “I’m just a wolf in sheep’s clothing fooling you into believing I’m a good guy.”

“What if it’s the wolf I want?” Heat flew through my body and between my thighs. Glasses or not, I recognized that look in his eyes. Dark and haunted, capable of penetrating every wall I’d ever put up over the years. Every single layer of protection peeled back.

My glasses fell from his hand, and before I knew it, he had my wrists secure in his grasp, my arms above my head up against the wall, pinning me in place.

“You’re too sweet for me,” he gritted out, breathing deeply. “I need to hear you acknowledge that. I will not corrupt you.” In contrast to the harsh tone, he gently rested his forehead against mine. “Do. Not. Let. Me.” Each word banged through the walls of my chest, and I felt them echo inside me and vibrate around my heart.

He was trying to stitch the warning into the very fabric of my being when all I wanted to do was beg him for the opposite. Plead with him to give me the thing I’d guiltily craved since the moment it’d felt like time stood still between us years ago.

“What if it’s to calm me, though? What if I need something from you only you’ve ever been able to give me?” I didn’t fight or resist his possessive hold. I embraced it. Gave in to the feeling of being dominated by this man, an experience I’d only lived out in my fantasies.

“You’re going to need to spell this out for me.” He lifted his head and brought his body closer to mine, and I shuddered at the feel of his hard length straining against me.

You feel the same. You desire me, too. Emboldened by that realization, I pleaded, “Kiss me.”

“No.” He shook his head. “I can’t do that.” Yet, he wasn’t budging from our locked position. He rotated his hips, allowing me to feel his arousal, making me lightheaded. “You were a hostage this week. Could’ve died. You’re . . . you. I refuse to be the one to destroy all that’s good inside you.”

“You want someone else to destroy me, then?” I challenged, not prepared to back down when the taste of his lips was so close. “You just implied there’d be a someone who will do it.”

His mouth tightened, and while caging me with both his eyes and body, he released his hold of my wrists only to slide his palms up to my hands, lacing our fingers together. Arms still up, hands held, he brought his mouth to my ear, sending chills throughout my body. Goose bumps traversed every inch of my skin.

Eyes closed, I murmured, “A kiss won’t corrupt me, but if your lips don’t touch mine . . . you just might kill me.”

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