Page 91 of Inevitable Endings
I gasp, the sound too soft, too fragile to carry the weight ofwhat I feel. But he hears it, feels it, the sharp intake of air that betrays my hunger. His mouth crashes against mine, and it’s nothing like I’ve ever known—ferocious, desperate, a clash of fire and ice. His lips demand, his tongue claims, and every part of me unravels in the fire he sets alight within me.
‘‘Diable suits you.’’ I murmur against his lips.
‘‘Yeah?’’ he murmurs back in a questioning tone, his voice low and lethal, a warning wrapped in a promise. ‘‘And you? You’re the only one who could ever bring him to his knees.’’
A river full of blood and passion, a longing and a missing so strong.
‘‘I miss you.’’ The words leave my lips sooner than expected and start a ravage in my chest of unbearable emotions. Every atom of me misses him.
‘‘You miss me?’’ His voice is silk and steel, wrapping around me, pulling me deeper. His thumb traces the curve of my jaw, slow, deliberate, as if committing the shape of me to memory. ‘‘Tell me, angel, do you even know what you’re saying?’’
I swallow, my throat thick with everything I can’t put into words. The ache of him, the absence that gnaws at my ribs like a wound that refuses to close. The hollow space he leaves behind, always waiting to be filled again.
‘‘Yes,’’ I breathe, because it’s the only truth I know. ‘‘I miss you. I hate you. I need you. It’s all the same, isn’t it?’’
‘‘You’re crying for a ghost,’’ he murmurs, his voice quieter now, no longer sharp, but gentle in a way I’m not sure he even realizes.
I shake my head, but the scent of him, mint and smoke, something warm, something safe, fades, slipping through my fingers like sand, like a memory trying to escape before I can hold onto it. I try, desperately, to keep it, to lock it away inside me where nothing can take it. But it blurs, softens at the edges.
‘‘I don’t want to forget,’’ I whisper, my voice unsteady, myhands gripping his shirt as if that alone could keep him here, real and solid and mine.
But I know this isn’t real.
His eyes soften, something unreadable flickering behind them, something deep. He could tease me, he could smirk and remind me that nothing lasts, that we are fleeting, that love is too fragile to survive us.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, his fingers find my chin, tilting my face up to his. His hands are rough, calloused, but his touch is unbearably gentle, like he’s memorizing every part of me, committing me to something deeper than memory.
‘‘You won’t,’’ he says, quiet but certain. ‘‘You couldn’t if you tried, I couldn’t. Even if they take my mind, I’ll always crawl back to you.’’
I can feel his eyes crawl over me, observing every little detail. Every little freckle, every lash out of place.
‘‘You’ll never be forgotten or unloved by me, Isabella.’’
Lightning runs through my veins. His words settle into the spaces between my ribs, filling them with something warm, something devastating. The words unravel me. I feel them in my bones, in the places no one else has ever touched.
His words don’t just touch me—they wreck me. They sink into the hollow spaces of my chest, blooming like something too big to hold, something too powerful to name. My breath catches, a quiet, broken thing, because how do you survive being seen like this? Being known like this?
A breath shudders through me, but before I can speak, he leans in. His lips don’t quite touch mine, just hover, close enough that I can feel the warmth of them, the quiet promise between us, the tether that has always pulled me back to him.
‘‘Even if my scent fades,’’ he whispers, his breath brushing against my lips, ‘‘even if my voice disappears from your mind,even if time tries to take me from you…’’ His fingers tighten at my waist, firm, grounding, reminding me that he’s here. For now, wherever that is. ‘‘Your heart will always remember.’’
‘‘Where are you?’’ My voice breaks, my fingers fisting in his shirt as panic coils in my chest.
He exhales slowly, his forehead pressing against mine, grounding me, steadying me even as he fades.
‘‘Here,’’ he whispers, his voice softer now, like a prayer, like a promise. ‘‘With you.’’
I shake my head, a sob catching in my throat. No. That isn’t enough. I don’t want ghosts, I don’t want echoes, I want him. Whole, real, mine.
His hands cup my face, his thumbs brushing the dampness from my cheeks as if he can wipe away more than just the tears, as if he can erase the fear, the ache, the unbearable knowing that this moment is slipping away.
‘‘Look at me,’’ he says, quiet but firm. I do. And there it is; love, hidden deep in the storm of his eyes.
His grip tightens for a moment, as if he’s fighting it, as if he’s trying to hold on just as desperately as I am. But I can feel it, he’s slipping, unraveling like threads coming undone.
‘‘Isabella, listen to me.’’ His voice is urgent now, rough, but still gentle, still him. ‘‘I want you to keep going. You’re stronger than you think.’’
