My throat tightens. Suddenly, there’s no fight left in me. Ineedher. I love her so fucking much even though I don’t want to.
I sit on the bed and gently stroke hair back from her forehead. My skin tingles, touching herfor the first time since we were teenagers. I want to live in this moment forever.
“I dream about you too, Harper.”
My words are soft, but not soft enough.
Her eyes blink open and my girl finds me in the dark with her.
CHAPTER FOUR
HARPER
“Felix?” My voice wavers. There’s no way Felix Blackwood is sitting on my bed, stroking my hair. I’m still sleeping. This is some cruel extension of my nightmare.
I sit up, searching his deep green eyes. They gaze back at me with tenderness I haven’t seen from him in eight years. This can’t be real. He’s a beautiful mirage, playing tricks on my mind.
But when my fingers press to his lips, feeling his warmth beneath my skin and his shudder, I realize I’m wide awake. Felix kisses my fingertips. His chest rises heavily with each breath.
“You’re really here.” My heart flutters. I’m trembling with him as tears of relief trickle down my cheeks.
“Yes, Harper. I’m here,” he murmurs, brushing away my tears.
“Why?”
He takes my palm. A spark rushes up my arm as hetrails a finger along my scar. “You know why.You belong to me for life.”
His reasoning doesn’t make sense. I’ve been saying that phrase to him for years and it never changed anything between us. Is he here because he heard Tyler and I are no longer together? Was it my letter I recently sent?
Whatever the answer, I don’t care. I’m too happy to risk ruining this moment with a conversation about Tyler.
“I’ve missed you so much, Felix.”
“I know. I’ve missed you too. Every day has been painful without you, my beautiful scarlet mirage.”
My breath hitches, knowing that phrase off by heart. He wrote me one hundred and fifty letters when trapped in Westbridge. I still read them till this day. They’re stored in my bedside drawer at home. There’s one letter with some of the most meaningful words I’ve ever read.
You are my light, Harper. The only thing shining through this endless misery. You always said I was a mirage. But you’re the mirage, Harper. My beautiful scarlet mirage.
After all these years, he remembers the phrase? I assumed he would have forgotten.
“Bad dream?” he asks.
I’m so swept up in Felix’s presence, entranced by his hypnotic eyes, that it takes me a few moments to realize he witnessed my strained sleep. I haven’t slept well inyears, plagued with recurring nightmares of the day Felix and I broke up and my entire world shattered.
I blink away tears. “I’m fine. More than fine. You being here makes everything better.”
Felix’s gaze trails over my face, drinking me in. His jaw clenches. There’s pain in him as he strokes my brow bone. My black eye. “You won’t have to worry about him anymore.”
Him? I don’t fully comprehend what Felix is talking about. The man who attacked me after rehearsal the other day? I heard his body was found in the river. Is that what Felix is referring to? I can’t think straight, especially when Felix’s eyes dip to my body. A muscle twitches in his jaw. He rasps, reminding me I’m naked. The look within him switches from affectionate to pure obsession, and I love it.
“As beautiful as I remember.” His throat works as his gaze drags back up to my face, lingering on my mouth. “The prettiest lips.”
A thrill rushes through me. Nervous, excited,desperate. Before I know what I’m doing, my mouth presses to his in an abrupt kiss.
He’s shocked. So am I, embarrassed by my inability to control myself, and pull back.
Felix laughs softly and murmurs, “Just like our first kiss in my car. Kiss me properly, Harper.”
