Page 66 of Wicked Beautiful (Wicked Games 1)
“Say you’re mine.”
He whispers it, his gaze locked to mine. I shake my head, my lips pressed together.
He falls still. In the quiet of the room, our heavy breaths are loud as thunder.
“What are you afraid of?”
I swallow. I know I must tell him some shade of the truth or he’ll know I’m lying, so I say, “You. This. Everything.”
He releases my hair, leans back on his heels—taking me with him by holding me around the waist—and then gathers me against his chest, and buries his face in my neck. Against my skin, he vows, “You’re safe with me. I promise you. You’re safe.”
I swallow a silent sob and close my eyes. “You can’t know that. You don’t know what lies ahead.”
His arms around me are crushing. Against my back, his chest heaves. Slowly, enunciating each word, he repeats, “You are safe with me.”
But you’re not safe with me, my lying lover. You’re holding your own destruction in your arms.
After a moment, when I don’t respond, he softly kisses my neck. He takes us down to the mattress, lying on our sides with my back to his front, our bodies still joined. Across the room in the wall of windows, I see our ghostly reflection in the glass, two lovers entwined in an intimate embrace.
Gently, slowly, he starts to move again. His arms stay wrapped around me. His lips rest against the furious pulse in my neck. He drops a hand between my legs and strokes me as only he knows how, drawing moans from my throat, giving me acute pleasure and acute pain as only he can.
Just before I come, I close my eyes to block the vision of that ghostly woman in the glass, her face a mask of misery.
TWENTY
~ Parker ~
I wake up alone.
The clock on the bedside table reads three a.m. I sit up in bed and call out, “Victoria?”
No answer.
Rising, I pull on the jeans I discarded on the floor last night and walk out of the bedroom. My bare feet are silent against the floor. I pass my office door, which is slightly ajar. I frown, pausing outside it.
I know I closed the door yesterday; I always keep the door closed when the housekeeper comes. No one is allowed in my office, not even her. I know I closed it.
Didn’t I?
Silently I push the door open and take a quick look around. Everything looks as it always does: perfectly ordered. I close the door and continue down the hallway toward the living room, which is where I find her.
Victoria stands nude at the window, staring silently out into the night. I stop, admiring the picture she makes, her lovely body silhouetted against the wall of glass, lights softly playing over her skin. She senses me and turns.
“You’re awake,” I say.
She murmurs, “Couldn’t sleep.”
As if magnetized, I draw closer. On my way past the sofa, I grab the cashmere lap blanket folded over the arm. Victoria watches me as I approach, her eyes unreadable in the shadows. When I’m finally standing in front of her, she looks up at me with a small, sad smile.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she says.
I wind the blanket around her body and hug her, pressing a kiss to her temple. “You didn’t.”
“Oh. You’re an insomniac, too?”
I chuckle, enjoying the scent of her hair, the feel of her in my arms. “Just a light sleeper.”
She allows me to nuzzle her for a moment, and then turns her head and stares out into the night. She seems so melancholy. It sends a pang of worry through my chest. I hope she doesn’t regret what happened between us, because I sure as hell don’t.
