Page 7 of At the Edge of Surrender

“Here.” He handed me the glass of water.

“Thank you,” I whispered as I brought it to my lips. “Though in a place like this, I’d think you might offer something stronger.”

A low chuckle rolled out of him.

Dark and mesmerizing, and God, I had no idea what it was about him. Why I felt compelled. Held by the energy that emanated from the danger carved on his flesh.

“Think that could be arranged.”

He moved back to the bar, and he glanced at me from over his shoulder. “What were you drinking?”

“Tequila.”

Something I was sure I was going to regret in the morning, but I was already dreading tomorrow with everything that I had, anyway. A hangover couldn’t make it any worse.

And right then, I needed to feel something different. Something different than the grief that had chained me for the last three months.Grief that I was terrified was going to get even more awful come tomorrow.

“Ah, now see, one should never drink tequila alone,” he said in that growly, mesmerizing voice.

“Is that so?” I drew out.

Was I flirting with him?

“Oh yeah,” he returned, just the hint of a cocky smile arching at the edge of his mouth. He picked up a bottle of silver tequila from a shelf that ran the backside of the small bar and filled two tumblers half full.

Then he sauntered back my way, two glittering glasses dangling from either hand.

My heart thumped wildly in my chest.

His striking features slipped between brutal, curious, and sly.

Like he held a million secrets, and he’d be all too willing to steal all of mine.

God, I really must have been drunk because I swore an aura built up around him with every step that he took. A dark light that glowed. An energy that pummeled and bashed and soothed.

I fumbled to set the glass of water onto the side table next to the couch.

“Here you go, beautiful.” He passed me the tumbler in his left hand, and my attention dropped to the tattoo he had stamped on the back of it.

It looked like some kind of symbol.

Two stacked Ss with a dagger running down the middle. An eye sat directly in the middle of it, and at the top of the dagger was a wilting black rose with its petals falling off.

I didn’t know why, but the sight of it impaled me with an arrow of sadness.

With loss.

Like maybe for one second, I could see his pain, too. That his mirrored mine.

He moved to sit in the office chair behind the desk that sat inthe middle of the room. Swiveling it toward me, he stretched his long, thick legs out in front of him.

It left about three feet of space between us, but still, I felt him like a landslide. Like a shifting of tectonic plates inside me.

Or maybe my life had gotten so mangled, I couldn’t discern what was already broken and all my shattered pieces were finally falling away.

Whatever it was, it ached, throbbed, as if for one second, he might be able to assuage it.

“What’s your name?” His voice was cut low.

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