Cyrus’s perfect mouth set in a hard line, eyes darkening by the second.
I didn’t give him a chance to respond before I retreated to my bedroom.
Only a half hourhad passed when there was a light knock on the door.
Alice stood up from her rocking chair and disappeared from my peripheral vision as I stared out the open window.
The milky glow of the rotating beam sliced through darkness as if it were another world away. It called out to me, illuminating my beloved black sea and the icy island. The beam touched me when it circled. It cast ribbons of gray and white, snowflakes drifting and floating like what paper confetti would do when tossed up into the night.
I thought about Stone and what he could be doing at this hour. I suppose he could be sleeping soundly before a fire. But when I closed my eyes, all I saw was the portrait of him standing in front of the window, looking out across the midnight sea, thinking of me.
“I’m sorry,” Cyrus said low from behind. “You should know that the idea of you and me together makes sense to me.”
I turned slightly and felt the warmth of his body on my back.
At my side, his fingers gently brushed my hand.
“I miss you,” he said, and I could smell the sherry wine in his warm breath.
I kept my gaze fixed on the lighthouse.
“Do you want to know who I think about every day?” He paused to wait for a response, and when I said nothing, his finger tapped mine. “I used to not go a day without you, and now that we’re both under the same roof, I hardly see you at all. I’m the one going crazy, Adora. If you don’t want me as your lover, keep me as your friend. I’ll do whatever you want, but not this. I refuse to settle for nothing.”
After a few moments, he walked away.
Whispers drifted from the doorway to my ears.
Still, I refused to acknowledge them.
They thought I couldn’t hear them.
I always heard them, and I didn’t care.
“It’s every night,” Alice whispered back. “She just stands there at the window.”
Cyrus’s voice was low and careful. “She’s homesick.”
“It’s more than that, sir. She doesn’t work. She hardly sleeps. She doesn’t eat. All she does is stare out this window like something is out there. Something beyond the cliffs.”
CHAPTER 23
ADORA
December 1, 2020
58 days until the Crimson Eclipse
61 days until the Cantini-Sullivan Wedding
Alice hadn’t launderedthe dress I wore when Stone fucked me. She’d insisted, but I couldn’t let her. I’d patched it up, sewn the tears, and fixed what was mine instead of replacing it, not bothering to get the stains out.
Four full days had passed since I’d seen him last. The memory of his cunning black eyes staring into mine as he licked me tumbled into another echo of us. His naked fingers trembled over my skin as he worshipped every part of me, destructive and pleasurable.
Stone hadn’t fucked me politely where desire was trapped in a bottle. He stole me with dire desperation, yet still able to bind us with a delicate thread of secrecy. No room for anyone or anything else. Witnessing him vulnerable and exposed was both terrifying and thrilling. Even while he had been engrossed in a mad, delusional state, an entrenched part of him needed a part of me, too.
It was evident in his eyes. Beyond the spell, he’d wanted me to feel what he was feeling. He’d wanted to connect with me in a way no one else had. We’d become two desperate souls stripped of control with the cruel desire to tangle artfully together, sort of like a punishing kiss.
It didn’t take me long to realize I needed more. Though, in truth, I was afraid of the vines of him wrapping around us so tight that it would become impossible to pull away.
