Page 136 of Vicious Games

If she goes through with her plan after graduation, if she really chooses the convent over me, then I need her to have this. I need her to have a piece of me. Something she can’t pray away, no matter how many Sundays she kneels. Just for this one night, I want her to feel what it’s like to actually live. To forget the rules, the expectations, the life waiting to claim her.

Maybe that makes me selfish. Maybe it makes me cruel. But if she’s going to walk away, if she’s really going to disappear behind stained glass and silence, then damn it, I want tonight to be the one thing she can’t let go of. I want her to remember me not as the boy she left behind but as the man who made her feel like the world could be hers. Even if she’ll never permit it.

“Stop,” she groans gently, slapping her palm on my chest.

Fuck. I’m ruining this. Turning something beautiful into a funeral in my head.

Frankie’s still here. She’s here with me. She hasn’t left. So why am I acting like she already has?

“I’m sorry. I’ll stop. Promise,” I murmur, pressing a kiss on her temple.

“Good,” she says with a soft smile, and just like that, I feel my chest tighten again. She turns her attention back toward the water, letting herself melt into me completely. “I’ve never been in the city at night,” she says quietly. “Chicago really is beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Best place in the world,” I say, though the truth is, the most beautiful thing in this whole city is already in my arms.

“I wish the night didn’t have to end.” She sighs wistfully.

“The night only ends when you say it does.”

“Is that so?” She grins, tilting her head back to look up at me. “What else do you have on the agenda, then?”

“Whatever you want,” I say without hesitation. I’d give her the damn moon if she so much as asked for it. “We could go dancing if you want. Head up to the top of the Sears Tower and pop a bottle of champagne.” Then, my voice drops, low and deliberate. “Or… we could go to the hotel suite I booked for us tonight and just hang out there.”

“You booked us a hotel room?” she asks, her voice barely above a whisper.

I nod, my throat suddenly dry. “I figured you might be tired after the day we’ve had. But if a hotel is too much for you, we can go to my house instead. Whatever you feel comfortable with.”

Her eyes search mine, ocean-deep and unwavering, and for a moment, I forget how to breathe.

“I’ve never stayed in a hotel before,” she says softly.

If she keeps looking at me like that, she sure as hell won’t be sleeping tonight in a hotel room, either.

“Is that what you want to do?” I ask, trying like hell to keep my voice steady.

She nods, slow and certain, then reaches up and traces her finger along my jaw, sending a jolt through every nerve in my body like a live wire. The touch is featherlight, but it ignites something primal in me as if she just struck a match against my skin.

“Do you want to go now?” I manage to get out, the tension crawling up my spine like fire.

“Yes.”

“Take us back to the pier!” I call to the captain, holding Frankie tighter, like I need to keep her anchored to me, or risk coming undone.

“You don’t have that look on your face anymore,” she teases, still tracing lazy circles along my jaw.

Then her finger glides over the seam of my lips, coaxing me to nip at it and I do, gently.

“Behave,” I mutter, my voice already fraying. “I’m trying really fucking hard to be a gentleman right now.”

“Is that why you haven’t kissed me all day?” she asks, half laughing, half curious. Still, I’m too focused on how the wind catches her hair, turning her golden and glowing—and fucking too beautiful for words.

“Would you have preferred I went full caveman on you?” I try to joke, though there’s nothing lighthearted about how I feel.

“Hmm…” she muses, eyes glinting. “How does a caveman act on a date?”

My hand moves before I can order it to, threading into her hair and tugging her head back just enough to make her gasp. Her lids go heavy the second my mouth brushes her ear. “Does that answer your question?” I growl, then graze my teeth over her earlobe.

She stares at me, her gaze laced with heat, and licks her lips. “How far away is that hotel you mentioned again?”

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