Page 23 of The Villain's Beloved (The Villain's Duet 2)

He stilled and slowly faced me.

I swallowed. “Ask me again.”

Silently, he studied me, and my heart raced wondering about what he was thinking.

He rubbed his jaw with his thumb, taking a step closer. “If you had a choice,” he lifted his chin, “would you pick this life with me…willingly?”

“Yes.” There was no use in denying the truth. “I would choose you, Elijah. Even though my head is telling me it would be the worst decision of my life, my heart is convinced that I would have no life without you.”

The muscle in his jaw pulled taut, and I gasped as he rushed forward, cupping my cheeks tightly in his palms and capturing my lips with a desperate kiss. I was sure I felt the ground crack beneath us, and we fell. It was no longer gravity keeping me grounded. It was his kiss, his touch, the way he consumed and electrified me at the same time. His tongue dueled with mine, claiming my mouth with one hungered sweep after the other.

I kissed him back, not because his onslaught left me no choice, but because I wanted to. I wanted him to feel what I felt, needed him to taste my surrender as he devoured me with one heady kiss that left me breathless.

His lips tore from mine, and our foreheads touched as he refused to let me go. “Promise me,” he whispered. “Promise me you will never leave me, no matter what.”

“Elijah—”

“No matter what, Charlotte. Promise me.”

His thumb brushed along my wet lips, and I closed my eyes, my heart beating a staccato rhythm inside my chest. There was no use even trying, an unnecessary energy vacuum for me to even try to think of a reason I wouldn’t do this.

“I promise,” I whispered, placing my hands on his wrists as he held my cheeks. “I promise I’ll never leave you.”

“Then marry me.”

My heart stopped. “What?”

“Marry me.” He shifted, bringing his body flush against mine. “Marry me tonight.”

I scowled and inched back. “Elijah, what are you doing?”

“I’m proposing.”

“I know that, but why…how…no, Elijah, that’s insane.”

“Give me one reason we shouldn’t get married.”

“I can give a thousand.”

“Fine.” He licked his lips. “I’ll give you one reason we should get married, then.”

“One?”

“Yes. One.” He kissed me then placed a warm palm on my chest. “Because among those thousand reasons you think we shouldn’t get married, your heart still says we should.”

I swallowed hard, finding it difficult to breathe with the immense weight of this moment. There was no doubt that he owned my heart. My body. My mind. I was his in every way that mattered, and the only thing—no, the only thought that kept me from saying yes was this voice inside my head that kept whispering how fucked-up and distorted everything was. My life had been derailed since the moment he whispered my name in the Alto Theatre. Like a hurricane, he stormed into my life, and he took everything he could. Everything. If he were the devil, he’d most likely have taken my soul too. But I couldn’t think straight. There was no way I could sort through my thoughts.

I gently shook my head. “No, Elijah. I can’t marry you.”

His throat bobbed as he swallowed, and I hated the shadow of disappointment in his eyes as he stared at me as if I had just ripped his heart out.

“I can’t marry you because—”

“Of the thousand reasons?”

“No.” I sighed. “Because you so utterly enthrall me, and I’m so consumed with what we have, it’s impossible for me to make a rational decision when it comes to you. Don’t you get it, Elijah? Your presence in my life, the way you possess me makes it hard for me to remember who I really am. To be…me.”

It was excruciating to stand there while he merely stared at me, not saying a word as if I had stolen his last breath. I didn’t dare say anything else, my hands trembling and heart pounding. Elijah’s presence swept through the room, suffocating me in his silence while my heart cursed me for saying no. For creating a scenario where he’d be hurt enough to forget about what we shared and be reminded of what I had always meant to be for him. A debt.

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