Page 93 of Burn With Me

“Anything about you is my business,” he retorts.

I snort. “I’m honestly shocked you don’t already know. I would’ve assumed you and your father had done your research.”

“My research wasn’t as in depth as you’d have thought,” he replies. “I could find out, but I don’t want to. I wantyouto tell me yourself.”

He wants me to tell him, myself? Why? Because it’s by far another piece of proof that he owns me? What the hell is with his obsession? I shake my head. I genuinely don’t understand it.

“How did we get here, Isaac?” I ask, truly curious. “At the start of all of this, you were tormenting me. The rumors. The video.” I stop and swallow around a tight throat. My hands clench into fists. “You found that video but you don’t know why it happened?”

“The why wasn’t important then.”

I laugh, but it’s anything but amused. “But it is now?” My voice raises an octave. “No.” I shake my head again. “You’re giving me whiplash, Isaac. I don’t know what changed things. I wouldn’t think sex would do that to a guy—certainly not a guy like you.”

“A guy like me is full of insecurities, Aurora,” he says. My skin comes alive as he steps closer. The low timbre of his voice rolls over my flesh. “I might not seem like it, but I’m actually quite simple. I have my own fears just like everyone else. The difference is that I’ve been taught to hide those fears. To bury them until no one could possibly unearth their remains.”

I lift my face and feel my lashes brush my skin as I tip my head back to keep my gaze on his. “So?” I prompt him. “What’s changed?”

“You,” he says. “You changed me.” He hovers, blocking out the rest of the room and the light. Despite the fact that I know where we are, he always seems to make me feel like we’re alone. Like I’m the only one in the room with him.

“How did I change anything?” I wish I could swallow the words right back up. Take them away and pretend like they never escaped. To ask him for answers feels like I’m asking for more.

Isaac’s breath brushes over my face. Hot. “I wish I could pinpoint one exact thing, Aurora,” he says. “I wish I could give you the answer you seek, but I can’t. All I know is that you’re like fire to a man dying in the arctic. I’ve been cold for so long. I want your warmth.”

I shiver at his words. A pang in my chest makes my whole body lean into him. This is not the place to have this conversation, but then again, Isaac has never been the type to conform to anyone’s expectations—save for maybe his father.

The reminder of Damien has me glancing to the side, past Isaac as I scan the room. My eyes widen when I spot Eric Wood standing before my mother and Damien. My lips part in surprise. For once, my mother’s smile falters. She recoils from Eric as he extends a hand to Damien, who takes it with what appears to be the most genuine of expressions I’ve ever seen on the man. Smugness. Victory.

His head lifts even as Eric seems to be chattering on. Damien assesses the room and I know exactly who he’s looking for when his eyes meet mine and lock. The corner of his mouth tilts up.Heinvited Eric Wood. I feel fucking sick.

Is it a warning? Is it something else?Any of the onlookers who don’t know my history would assume that Damien is simply playing the jealous, prideful new husband—rubbing his marriage in the face of my mother’s ex.

“Aurora?” Isaac looks back and follows the direction of my gaze. Damien tips his head down in response and I feel Isaac’s body stiffen at the silent, barely there acknowledgment.

Fucking bastard.My limbs begin to shake. They tremble with barely repressed rage.How fucking dare he?

Isaac turns back to me and pushes me further towards the back of the room until my view of Damien and my mother and Eric fucking Wood is disrupted. “Don’t,” he hisses. “Don’t look at him.”

How can I not? He ruined my fucking life. My childhood. My mother never forgave me—she might act like she gives a shit, she might have divorced him after everything went down, but after Eric, she stayed away longer and longer. At first, it was just weekends alone, then extended weeks, months, holidays … Marcus was away at college, and I … I was left to bear the brunt of the local scorn. Eric never even got jail time. She thought it was good enough to divorce him.

No. Even prison wouldn’t have been enough for me.

Isaac lifts his hand and touches my side. I jerk in response, but he doesn’t release me as a normal person would. Of course not. Isaac is anything but normal. “What do you want, Aurora?” he asks, lowering his voice. “Do you want him gone?”

I swallow, my throat suddenly dry. “Why?” I demand, my voice coming out harsher than I intend. “Are you offering to get rid of him for me?”

“Yes.” One word. That’s all it takes for the whole of my attention to return to him. I stare up into his eyes, dark and wicked. Midnight deviousness reflects back at me. My lips part but I don’t speak. Instead, I inhale a breath and another and another until I feel like I’m so full of air that I could fly away.

“He bothers you.” It’s not a question, so I don’t answer it. I exhale as Isaac’s hand moves down my arm to my elbow and then even further to my hand. “Come with me.”

I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t, but when he takes my hand and pulls me with him, I go. Isaac leads me around the edges of the ballroom, behind potted plants and tables stacked high with catered food and large luxurious ice sculptures. At first, I think he doesn’t actually mean for us to leave the room and he’s just planning to get me somewhere within the confines of this horrible place—still close and yet unseen by others.

Surprisingly, though, that’s not his plan. Isaac takes me to a side door I hadn’t noticed before and as a waiter comes out with a tray laden with drinks, he catches the edge with his hand and holds it open before pulling me inside. We don’t stop there. Together, we make our way through the back hallway and then into an open kitchen.

The sharp jarring sound of dishes clinking together and pans being yanked off of burners, dumped, and then tossed into a sink full of water—the heat sizzling and steaming up the space as it hits—is so different that it makes me jump. Isaac doesn’t give me room to pause. He keeps going, gently tugging me along until we’re out of the kitchen and into another small hallway.

We move so fast, taking so many turns, that I know without him, I’ll be lost in this house. I’m dizzy. My stomach is churning and my head hurts. I was so confident when I first came here but seeing Eric again—I shut my eyes as they begin to burn.

Pretty girl ... so soft … shhh, don’t make a sound. No one has to know what you like. I can make you feel so good. Just lay there and let me—

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