Page 127 of The Sinner's Bargain

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

NAYA

My heart ached at the loss and pain carved into the lines of Thoran’s face. It shifted with the firelight, cutting hollow grooves between his eyes.

I hated seeing him so lost. I hated that I didn’t know what to do to help him. Did I believe what he was telling me?

Yes.

I believed it because he believed it, but also, there was so much tragedy. So much darkness in that house. How could it not be steeped in some truth?

“You need to go, Blue,” he murmured, fingers pinching my chin. Thumb tracing the bottom curve of my lip. “You need to forget me and never look back.”

I caught his wrist. Not to stop him, but in case he tried to pull away. “I can’t.”

A muscle flexed in his jaw, a hardening that matched the dark glint in his eyes. The hand I held moved up to the back of my head and pulled me closer.

But I kissed him.

I closed what sliver of space he was trying to leave between us and captured his mouth. my arms tangled around his neck, pulling him to me.

“Fuck, Blue!” he growled into the kiss, and I did something I swore to Malcolm I would never do.

“Naya,” I whispered.

Thoran went rigid against me. His heart kicked against my chest. A vicious thump that vibrated all the way through me. His eyes flew open, and I found myself lost in the sea of whiskey illuminated by the fire behind me.

I wondered, for just a moment, if I’d made a mistake. I’d only known this man less than a month. I still had no idea what his connection to Jarrett was. I didn’t know if he would betray me. Hurt me.

But then his lips cracked into a smile brimming with unimaginable delight. A radiant exultation that squeezed around my heart with such ferocity that I would have told him anything he wanted if he promised to smile at me like that forever.

“Naya,” he repeated as if whispering a prayer. His fingers grazed the curve of my jaw, tucked beneath my chin. “I have never loved a name so much.”

Heat and euphoria swept through like a raging inferno. My head swam with the rush of giddy happiness the mere whisper of my name on his lips had invoked. I wanted to blush and giggle and cry all in the same breath, but all I could do was stare at his mouth and wish he’d say it again.

“I...” I began, not exactly sure what I’d been wanting to say, but knowing I had to explain, to tell him why.

“I don’t care,” he said. “I don’t fucking care. None of it matters.”

The weak part of me desperately wanted to be frozen in that moment with Thoran’s arms around me and my name on his tongue, but knew it couldn’t last. Our time together was a handful of sand in a glass, and it was quickly running out, and I had never been so heartbroken.

“Thoran.”

Even to my own ears, his name was a plea. A choked breath of misery wedged in my chest. It hurt.

Hurt to sit there.

Hurt to leave.

Hurt to be anywhere that wasn’t in his arms.

It felt like the brink of madness. Like we were both teetering so close, and the only thing keeping us steady was the other’s hold.

Overwhelmed.

Terrified.

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