Page 111 of Visions of Darkness

Like whispers he uttered directly into my soul.

His need and his terror. His desire and his fear.

And I thought maybe ... maybe he felt the same. Maybe he ached for me the way I ached for him.

The fluttery buzz that whipped through my belly and the tension that strained and pulled and possessed.

“Here,” I muttered, my fingers shaking as they went to the hem of his soiled shirt. I began to nudge it upward, and Pax emitted a low groan as I continued pushing it higher.

Inch by inch, it revealed the peaks and valleys of his muscled abdomen.

Slowly exposing the scars that had been carved into his flesh and the colors and shapes that had been woven over them.

The designs veils of our truth.

Reaching up, Pax tugged the fabric the rest of the way over his head, and he vibrated when I got brave enough to softly trace my fingertips over a scar on his side.

A live wire that had been possessed by the energy that howled.

A power that was ethereal.

Otherworldly.

I felt it battering the exterior walls of the cold, barren restroom when I touched him, felt it penetrate my soul as he stared down at me with a potency that stole through my insides.

“Aria,” he murmured.

I shook as I returned the whisper of his name. “Pax.”

He let the pad of his thumb trace the scar that ran along my right cheek.

I leaned in to his touch.

“You’re wrong, Aria. You are a princess. One I’d be a bastard to touch.”

We remained there for a long moment.

Held.

Bound.

A piece of us anchored while the rest was lost to treacherous, violent seas.

Pax suddenly cleared his throat, and he ducked away and turned his back to me.

He’d only moved a foot, but it felt like a cavern had split open between us.

He dug out a clean shirt from his duffel, pulled it over his head, then tossed everything back into the kit before he stuffed that into the duffel and zipped it.

“We need to keep moving.” A new hardness underscored the words, and he kept his gaze averted as he extended his hand for me to take.

He flinched when I did, the contact a searing burn that flamed, a burst of light flashing behind my eyes.

He led us back out, moving cautiously the way he always did, though now that he was cleaned up and had erased the evidence of the altercation, he didn’t pause to look around the corners. He just hurried us toward his car.

I still had the keys, so I clicked the lock, and he led me directly to the passenger side. He tossed our bags into the back. Once I was inside, he shut my door, then rushed to climb into the driver’s seat.

Headlights suddenly speared across the lot as a car approached.

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