Page 58 of Moonlit Temptation

“What’re you doing to me?” he rasped, low enough for me to guess I wasn’t supposed to hear, before he picked his head up, meeting my waiting gaze with a steady resolution.

“It was an entire year of my balls in their vise grip. I didn’t know when they would show up, what they would require of me. Only that every month, on whatever day they chose, they’d appear and give me a task I’d have to complete before the month was up. Sometimes, it would be in the beginning of the month, sometimes in the middle. And sometimes it was on the very last day. Whoever didn’t complete the given task was cut.”

He gave me a sharp look that pierced my chest with the determination burning through it. “And I wasn’t getting cut.”

There went that glazed look crossing his features again. “Some of them were easy. One time, they made me drink bottle after bottle after bottle of Irish whiskey.”

I blanched. That was easy?

He chuckled at my face. “Compared to other things they had me do, the drinking was a sweet piece of cake.”

Good God. “Like what?”

Saint shook his head. “Too many things for your sweet ears to hear.”

I bristled at the compliment. “I’m not made of glass, Saint. I won’t run out that door screaming in horror.”

“I know that, Madelayne. But maybe I don’t want you to look at me any differently than you have been. Maybe I want the way you looked at me when I left the hotel room this morning back, and if I told you what else they had me do, you’d never give me that look again.”

His voice was raw, almost broken, as he begged me to give it to him now.

“How did I look at you?”

“Like I lived in the stars.”

My hand went to my necklace he gave me.

“Do you think you could ever look at me like that again?”

Could I?

I moved toward him. He leaned back, with apprehension tightening his features. Though they smoothed out when I straddled him.

This was the Saint I knew.

My Saint.

The man I saw in that room was just another piece of him. It didn’t matter how he got there, it just mattered that he came back here.

To me.

But not for much longer.

Our time in London was running out, the week shrinking to days, and soon to be hours. There were other things I’d much rather be spending our time doing.

My lips hovered above his as I whispered, “If we’re sharing secrets in this room, let’s exchange a few more while we can.”

We didn’t talk about Icarus again after that night. It was a shadow we tucked into the corner. Saint was grateful for it. Even after he told me what he did, his eyes still followed me with trepidation. As if I was going to vanish when he wasn’t looking.

The whole point of a secret society was to be a secret.

One I discovered rather easily, thanks to a cabbie who had an excellent knack for tailing people.

I still thought about them, though. More questions I wanted to ask. But soon I had other pressing matters weighing on my mind.

Our time in London was over.

Wasn’t it amazing how fast time could travel to the day you dreaded most? You knew it was coming but still harbored this impossible secret hope that somehow, someway it wouldn’t come to fruition.

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