Page 63 of Duke's Daring Bookworm
My already constricted chest heaved at the thought, trying to work itself into full on sobs. The pain of knowing I didn’t belong, of how much I had to lose, how nothing would ever be the same pierced my body and mind.
I had to go back to that life, the dark and lonely one before cherry martinis and wild ideas. The one where I hung on every scrap of attention Duke gave me, trying not to think of all the women that got more. I couldn’t—oh god. Please. No.
Breathe. Just breathe.
The crickets came back as my heart slowed, and distantly, I heard soft footfalls heading my way.
Rescue.
Oh, thank god.
I brought my head up so fast the world spun, and the edges went black. When my vision cleared, a figure of a man emerged from one of the turns. He stood tall and broad, an adonis in Armani. Something sobeautiful that he couldn’t be real, like worshipful hands carved him from stone in precise, delicate lines. I thought of the Greefs brothers’ statues of Lucifer—tempting, alluring, entirely too much and not enough all at once.
“There you are,” Duke said. I was so focused on his visage and the relief I felt at being found that I almost didn’t catch the hard edge to his voice. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
The second he reached me, he pulled me into his arms without another word. He hunched over me, his arms shaking where they held me, and buried his nose in my neck.
I wrapped my arms around him, too relieved at the sight of him to even think of the other woman he held tonight. Or maybe I would go to him no matter what, no matter who he had in his arms before.
He held a dangerous power over me, like lightning striking in the distance, coming closer with every bolt, warning me that the next might be our last.
“I was so worried when I couldn’t find you. Then one of the staff said they saw you running—” He pulled away, his hand shaking as he brought it up to my face. I probably looked terrible, my hair falling out of its braid, my make-up had smeared and running from my tears. “What happened?”
I didn’t want to answer. I didn’t want to ruin the precious time we had left. I buried my head back in his chest, ruining the pristine white of his shirt with my tears.
“You’re ok. I’ve got you.” He ran his hand up and down my back and I timed my breaths to each pass. He didn’t have me. I held him tighter, wishing that simply pulling us together would meld us into one and this would never need to end.
“We didn’t dance,” I said to break the silence. I didn’t want to talk about her, the woman in his arms, the same one from his office. I knew the look she gave him that day she interrupted us. There was something more there, maybe something they wanted to get back to, and I stood in the way of that.
I couldn’t think about how she looked at him tonight, like he was her entire world—her savior, like I looked at him now.
No, I couldn’t think about any of that right now. This may be all I got before it was over.
If this was all we would ever have, I wanted a dance.
He adjusted his grip on me and brought my hand up to his chest and held it there. The position seemed so familiar, with the moon overhead and the way he looked at me. Crickets and our heartbeats were the only sounds, but he swayed with me, anyway. Dancing under the light of the moon as it crawled across the sky, erasing whatever little time we had left.
“My mistake,” he said, as if I wasn’t the one that ran away before we could.
“Do you remember when we were seventeen?” His voice slipped through the dark between us, low and smooth. He looked a little lost.
“I remember everything.” I shrugged because he knew this already. He knew I didn’t forget, at least not the long-ago things, and how much those memories could weigh on me.
“We were at a party, and you hated it.” I still didn’t know where he was going with this, but I went along with him, anyway.
“Yeah, I remember.” I shuddered just thinking about how overwhelming it was.
He rubbed his thumb along my fingers where he still held my hand as we swayed.
“I brought you to that party because I thought of it as a date, though I never actually said that and just dragged you somewhere you would be miserable.” His sigh brushed along my face. “Sort of like I did tonight. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you here, and I definitely shouldn’t have left you to fend for yourself when I did.”
“I wanted to come. I was so excited. Don’t you dare apologize.” What was he saying? Why was he bringing this up now? My heart ached thinking he didn’t want to be here with me.
I laid my head on his shoulder.
“That party changed everything for me, and yet here I am making the same mistakes.” We stopped swaying and just stood there listening to the crickets.
“Kiss me.” I looked up at him, asking for more. Asking for this not to be over, not yet.
