Page 135 of The Wrong Heart

Melody paces toward me until we’re toe-to-toe, misty-eyed and flushed.

I can’t read her—I can’t fucking read her.

Is she pissed? She should be.

Is she hurt? Probably.

But her eyes shimmer with something akin to wonder,enchantment, and that feels so much fucking worse. My limbs go taut as anxiety grips me. “Jesus, Melody, say something.”

She opens her mouth to speak, and a little gasp breaks through. She’s tongue-tied.

Fuck.

“Damn it, listen to me—”

Melody’s mouth silences my words, cutting them off with her eager tongue. Her kiss is punishing, desperate, merciless, one hand fisted in my hair, while the other…

The other goes straight to my chest. My heart.

She pulls back for a breath, her tears spilling out, glistening her cheekbones, and she whispers two words before crashing her lips into mine once more. “My Zephyr…”

—THIRTY-TWO—

It’s him.

I know I should be outraged, indignant,boiling mad—and I was.

Iwas.

Until I saw him.

Parker discovered who I was during that fateful video call, and instead of unveiling his true identity, he came to my house and had sex with me. He allowed me to believe that his alter ego had found me unappealing when he could have tempered my insecurities with the truth.

I had every intention of battering him with my bruised heart, assaulting him with the tears of my betrayal, but then his eyes locked on mine, and all I felt was…

Relief.

It’s him.

Parker is Zephyr.

Parker has Charlie’s beating heart inside his chest, functioning and strong.

Alive.

And the moment he opened his front door, I understood—I knew why he couldn’t tell me. He said to me once that he didn’t feel worthy, that his heart was a burden.

He was ashamed.

He felt like his scars and dark past made him an unfit candidate for such a precious thing.

“My Zephyr…” I breathe against his lips before stealing another violent kiss. I’m starved and achy. Ineedhim. “I should have known it was you.”

Parker envelops me in a fierce embrace, dragging his lips from my mouth to my neck, then whispering in my ear, “I’m sorry. Let me expl—”

“No… I understand.” Clasping his face between my palms, I redirect him to my mouth, melting when our tongues collide. My right hand lowers back to his chest, relishing in the sweet vibrations of his heartbeats. Oftheirheartbeats. “Make love to me.”

He groans. “Melody…”

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