Page 65 of Sinful Desires
The problem with water was it never washed anything off—it brought things back. Showers were supposed to calm you down. For me, they summoned ghosts. Every time.
I kept it quick for a fucking reason. Too long, and I started remembering. The choke. The burn. The sound of someone drowning, and the realization that it’s you.
And then her pretty voice, cutting through the noise in my skull like a flare in the dark.
What do I deserve, Théo?
My hands pressed flat to the cold tiles. A curse slipped out before I could swallow it.
Putain de merde.
In all the years I’d served, I’d never fucking cracked.
Not in a chopper going down over the ocean. Not with a gun to my head, or blood soaking through my boots. I’d watched people with rifles scream their guts out while their brains painted the wall behind them.
I’d held dying men down while they pissed themselves, begging for mothers long fucking buried. Planes had dropped. Boats flipped. Bones had snapped under my hands like twigs. And through all of it, I hadn’t blinked. Hadn’t felt a goddamn thing.
Because out there, losing control gotyou killed, or worse, turned you into something weak. And I didn’t do fucking weak. Not for anyone.
Except for the girl with fire in her hair and smoke on her tongue.
It took every last ounce of control I had not to give in right then and there. I’d been dreaming about it for years. Two years of hell, of wanting her, craving her. And then she had been pressed against me, soft, sweet, and sinful, her mouth parted like an invitation I didn’t deserve.
Her breath had hit my skin, and I swear to God, it burned. And I knew, I knew that if I got another taste, even just one, I’d be ruined.
Done.
Hers.
Pour toujours.
But like a sick bastard chasing pain, I also knew I’d do it anyway.
I got out and dried off without thinking, and dressed in black like always. I sat on the edge of the guest bed, elbows on my knees, hands tight. Staring at the wall like it might give me a reason not to do what I already knew I would.
Her blue eyes had looked hollow tonight?…?except when they’d met mine. Then they’d lit up, like she’d wanted to worship me and destroy me in the same breath. And fuck me, she almost had me on my knees.
I muttered under my breath, jaw clenched so tight it ached. “Fuck it.”
I needed to see her.
I got up and opened the door. The hallway was dark, quiet, half lit by the glow of a wall sconce down by the stairs. Everything smelled like money and furniture polish except a distant candle, maybe vanilla. The kind of house built to keep secrets inside it.
Her door was halfway open across the hall. I walked across with silent steps and knocked once.
No answer.
I pushed the door open. Her room smelled like lavender, all sweet and powdered with something fake and delicate underneath it, like a scent made to hide the rot. I hated it.
Not the scent.Her.
That she could sleep through all this. That she could make a man like me feel this fucking raw.
I hadn’t come here for closure. I’d come to look at the reason I was still breathing and wonder if that was her fault too.
Her room looked like a fucking dollhouse. Soft-pink walls, white trim, pastel ribbons lined up like they’d never been touched. Trophies on a shelf, horses on posters, ballerina figurines in a perfect row like they hadn’t been moved inyears.There were paintings too, scattered around the room, all done by a kid who had still believed in things like blue skies and magic carousels.
And then there was Scarlett, tucked into herself, one leg kicked free and toes pointed, the duvet slipping low over her thighs, her mouth slightly parted, red hair spilling like fire across the pillow.
