“I want you to be my first,” I reply, looking steadily into his eyes, and something charges between us. An electricity conjured up by the way our bodies react to one another.
He pulls me off the wall and walks us over to the blanket in the middle of the room, careful not to knock over the candles as he does. He lowers himself to his knees and gently lays me down on the soft fabric beneath me.
I allow myself to fall into the blanket, fully laying on my back as I watch him reach up to pull his shirt over his head. His arms flex as he does and then he carefully lays his shirt down so as not to catch the place on fire.
I let my eyes rake over his body—this isn’t the first time we've ever seen each other fully naked, but I still admire the way his bare skin looks, especially illuminating in the amber light of the flames around us. He’s talked about his plans to completely cover his body in ink one day and I don't have a problem with that at all, but I know that in a few years I won't have a choice so I take in his unmarked skin while I can, wanting to remember every stage of Trace I’ll come to know.
He slowly leans over me, his chest coming down over me and his lips fall closer to mine. My heart is racing, hungry for his touch.
"I need your words, Livie. One more time," he speaks in a sultry timbre with his lids heavy over his eyes and his tone a husky rumble. "I don't want you to feel pressured by me or anything else. Before we continue . . . Are. You. Sure?" I love his caution with me and how patient he's been.
I never feel pressured with him and I never feel like I am doing anything I don't want to do. He's always allowed to make my own decisions and I can't believe how unreal this man is because of it.
"I'm sure, Trace.I just . . . I want to show how much I want you." I wrap my legs around his back, holding him in place over me. “I want you to take me.”
It's impossible not to squirm when I feel how hard he is against me. And I part my lips on a lusty sigh when he presses harder.
"I know how much you want me, love. But this…" he thrusts again. "This will prove toyoujust how fuckingmineyou are."
10
OLIVIA
“We all go a little mad sometimes.” — Norman Bates, Psycho (1960)
PRESENT DAY
My body is on fire. Even against the cold, damp tree holding me up and the wet mixture of mud beneath our feet, my body feels lit with the heat of a million flames.
The memory of that night floods me. It was the last true memory I have before everything went black. Or at least I thought. I know now that my memory with Declan happened before Trace and I…
It’s weird to me that I have a very clear recollection of the cabin with Trace, and I remember nearly everything up until my new imagery with my brother. But then after meeting up with Trace, I can’t remember anything. Not until I was surrounded by flashing lights and the sound of crying as I watched the bodies be loaded into ambulances.
But that moment with him is so vivid. I can still feel the gentle caress of his touch as he handled me withcare that night, making sure he didn’t hurt me while he treasured me like it was going to be our last night together.
Itwasour last night together.
I never saw Trace again after that. It was the reason I inadvertently found solace in someone else’s arms. The reason I needed to black him out on top of everything else I was forced to forget. But getting him out of my head was harder than I thought. So much so that even now, I’m still trying and I’ve probably been in denial of the fact that I haven’t thought about him since then.
But I have and now that he’s here, actually in front of me and not just lurking from the darkness, I feel like I’m about to burst.
It's his eyes. That’s what causes the heat to spread along my body and tortures my mind with memories that I know I’ll never be able to forget, no matter how hard I try. I know he’s looking at me, even behind the glow of his mask, caged and protected. There's nothing else that lights me up the way his eyes do, the way they always have. When he's looking,I know. I can feel it.
Seeing him again is like teetering on the edge of agony and elation. He's familiar but unknown. And I miss him but I really fucking hate him right now.
"What do you want?" I dare ask again with a little more bite than before, still knowing that he won't give me a straight answer, but nothing is making much sense right now.
I can only hope that he'll be honest with me, just like he always was before. Though I feel eerily enough that the man in front of me is not the man I leftbehind, the man who leftmebehind. I can tell by how aggressive his tone is when he speaks to me, not at all the gentle but confident tone he once carried. The way his body now seems to hold anger, evident in the way he touches me, and a modicum of something else I can't pinpoint.
I have to remember that he lost a sister that night in the Pines as well. But that can’t have anything to do with this right now . . . can it?
What else could I have fucking done to him?
"What fun would it be to fill you in on my agenda, Reckless? That would ruin my plans for you," The resonance of his voice sounds hollow, like he's been running away from his own ghosts for far too long. The sound of it causes me to wonder what he's been up to all these years, where he’s been andwhohe’s been with.
Part of me wants to feel empathetic to the idea that maybe he also lost a part of himself after Seren’s death. Another part of me wants to pick him apart and figure out what's causing the pain that I can undoubtedly feel radiating from him. But what business of that is mine when he left me broken and alone and why would I want to burden myself with whatever it is his past holds? He left me there for a reason, otherwise I might think to actually care. I wanted to care.
The man standing in front of me—nearly holding me hostage to whatever the fuck kind of mind games he plans to ensue—is the same man I gave my whole heart to only for him to shatter it into a million pieces. Regardless of how the years have changed him and what those reasons are, that fact will always remain the same. And while his hidden eyes still feel like hotcoal on my skin, his demeanor is cold as ice and I feel discomfort with the fact that I don't actually know who he is anymore. But then again, he doesn't know me anymore either so maybe the playing field is even.
