Page 69 of Manacled Hearts

“Yeah? And what exactly is staring me right in the fucking face, Evelyn?” In two strides I’m right in front of her, our bodies close to touching, her neck craned to look up at me.

Up close like this there’s no missing it—the fire might be absent from her voice, but it burns feverishly in the gold of her eyes.

“Go on,” I coax her. “What’s stari—”

“Me.”

The bluntness of her answer jolts something inside my chest. It spreads a chill through my body, and my skin sizzles, finally realizing just how close it is to the woman who makes my soul burn. Only, I want to feel the sting, the ache, the pain… the pleasure. I can’t move.

Christ, there are so many appropriate and smart things I want to say to her right now. But what comes out of my mouth is neither appropriate, nor smart. It’s retaliation in its most immature form, and I can’t stop myself.

“Is that why you got a makeover? To grab my attention? Trying to turn dark and mysterious, dressing skimpy and tight? Is that how it works? You learn to do make up and get dolled up? You’re eighteen now and you’re coming out to play, trying to attract all this attention of men to you?”

Her mouth falls open wider and wider with every idiotic sentence that falls out of mine.

She takes a long, deep breath. “This is how you’re fighting this fear? By trying to hurt me?”

“I have no fear!”

“Yet you still hurt me.”

“Goddamn it, woman! What do you want from me?”

“For you to admit it.” She moves closer, our fronts touching now, our breaths feeding off each other. “Admit that you don’t see me as a girl at all. You’re hiding. Fighting it.” Her delicate hands go to rest on my chest, and her touch turns to electric fire, and I crave to douse myself in that feeling.

“Evelyn,” I warn.

“You wanted more when you touched me, pressed me against you and danced with me. Admit it, Finnigan. It was not enough. We both know it. It’s been months now.”

Her scent of ginger and brown sugar wraps around me like the finest, lightest of silks, yet there’s an odd heaviness in it, pulling me down to her. A peculiar spell I’m trapped in. I did, I wanted more. More than she could give, and definitely more than I should take.

“Admit that you wanted your hands to go lower, to press harder, to sink further. Admit you like the feel of me, the thought that when I do all those things to myself, it’s you I’m thinking of.”

She’s hypnotizing me, and I can’t help being pulled deep into those words, imagining every move she speaks of. This is so goddamn wrong, it almost feels right.

“Stay away, Evelyn. Do not dare cross this line,” I warn with venom in my voice. “Even by yourself, do not fucking think of me when you…”

She raises an eyebrow at that addition.

“Tell me, then.” Her chest rises and falls on erratic breaths, yet she again reins in her anger, and I’m kind of disappointed. “Tell me you don’t want me, and I’ll never speak a word of it ever again. Like it never happened.”

I have to squash this.

“I’m going to say it one last time—do not cross the line. You’re leaning too hard into this rebellious, childish phase that you girls go through. But I’m not your target!”

“You—”

“We’re done here.” And on that note, I turn and walk away.

The door doesn’t move after I walk through and close it behind me. She’s not following. What a great mood to go into this fucked up meeting with.

I didn’t tell her though. I couldn’t tell her I don’t want her.

That was close. Too close. I wanted, no, I needed to touch her. To feel her. But there is a line, and I have to be on the other side of it.

“Finally.”

I give Maddox a grave look in response to his exasperation, as I step into Vin’s office and close the door behind me.

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