Page 64 of Unholy Obsession

She’s the wild wood, and I’ve been a goddamned idiot to think I could ever… what? Tame her? Tether her?

She unravels the threads I’ve knotted so tightly around myself.

I thought I was here to keep control, to be the one who dictates the terms.

But that was a lie.

I’m here because sheexists.

I’m here because, without her, there’s nothing else.

I’ve been a lost man, thinking I was found. The man who hates lies was living buried under so many I can’t tell one from another. I’m no shepherd. I’m a fraud.

Her laughter fades, her gaze drifting across the crowd, indifferent—until it lands on me.

Her smile falters just slightly, but it’s enough.

I watch her breath catch. I see it. Feel it. Like we’re connected by some invisible thread pulled taut between us.

Her eyes—those impossible, beautiful green eyes—widen with surprise, then something darker flickers behind them.

Recognition. Heat. That sharp, electric awareness that’s always been there, thrumming beneath every word we’ve ever spoken, every look we’ve ever shared.

Our gazes lock, and the world collapses.

There’s no gala. No music. No crowd.

It’s just her.

Just me.

I start moving toward her, my steps automatic, pulled by a force older than logic and stronger than reason. My heartbeatdrowns out everything else. It pounds in my chest and my throat and my skull.

She doesn’t look away.

Neither do I.

Each step feels like falling.

Because in this sea of people, beneath the glittering lights, surrounded by noise and artifice?—

It’s just us.

It’s always been just us.

“You came.” Her voice trembles.

“I’ll always come for you.”

“I—I didn’t mean to—” She cuts off. “I just—” She cuts off again, looking up at me helplessly.

I hold out a hand, desperate to touch her. “Would you like to dance?”

TWENTY-FOUR

MOIRA

I blinkup at him like he just asked if I wanted to wrestle a tiger. A very sexy, broody tiger in a tailored black suit with eyes that say,I’ll ruin you, and you’ll thank me.

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