Page 45 of Sinful Desires
The girl who wanted to die, and the boy who wanted to live.
His words were a burden I didn’t know how to carry. Full of light, of yearning, of promises I couldn’t even begin to understand.
So, I did what I had come to do. I dove into the pool, headfirst into the water, the cold slicing through me like glass. It stole the breath from my lungs, froze the noise in my chest.
For a second, the world went still.
I stayed under, letting the chill wrap around me like a second skin. Letting it hush everything inside me. The water blurred the edges of everything. My thoughts, my guilt?…?even him.
Silence.The kind that prevails death.
But then he came after me.
I opened my eyes and saw him. His strokes were stiff, controlled, like his body knew what to do, but wanted to be anywhere else. His jaw was locked, eyes fixed ahead, unreadable even underwater.
His hand found my waist, and before I could even blink or fight him off, he was pulling me up. My head broke through the surface and I gasped, but I couldn’t get enough air. He was too close. His face hovered inches from mine.
Too tall. Too strong. Too calm.
His jaw clenched, his whole body shaking.
There was something terrifying in his eyes, something I wasn’t ready to see. Like I’d ripped open something that should have stayed buried.
He looked at me like I had dragged him under with me, like I’d cracked him open too.
“Putain de merde,” he shouted, voice shredded. “Are you fuckinginsane?”
My gaze drifted over his face shamelessly.
The thick lashes clung to his wet skin. His eyes, still storming, wouldn’t look away. And his mouth—pink, parted, dripping with fury and everything I didn’t deserve. It was the kind of mouth that ruined prayers. The kind you ache to taste even when you know it will undo you.
“Knew you wouldn’t let me drown,” I whispered, my breath brushing his mouth, like I wanted him to prove it with his lips or with his hands.
I hated that I couldn’t even choose when I was done with this life, that even my death wasn’t mine to control. But in his arms, for one fucking second, I forgot why I was even here. And the gates of death slammed shut for now.
For the briefest moment, his eyes flickered to my lips, and I saw the storm building in his gaze.
A hunger.A darkness.
Like he wanted to ruin me with his mouth and bury me with his hands.
I leaned in, the heat between us thickening, the space between our bodies practically crackling with it.
But then, without warning, he let go, like my touch had burned him. He pushed back, slicing through the water with a single fluid motion, not sparing me a glance. Not a word.
The second his hands left me, the cold had hit harder.
But the shame? That cut deeper.
I was useless. Couldn’t fucking kill myself. Couldn’t even survive.
Scarlett Harper. The Red Queen ofnothing.
A crown of ashes. A kingdom of ruin.
Useless to the very fucking end.
I couldn’t believe I had humiliated myself tonight.Twice. First with him seeing me on the floor, like some spoiled little brat getting physically lectured by her father, then with him watching me flail around in the water, trying to drown like a pathetic idiot.
