“Drink,dolce,” I say gently, guiding the crystal tumbler to her lips.
She obeys, guzzling the shot like water, coughs, then covers her mouth with the back of her hand as she steadies, color returning to her cheeks. Her hand stops shaking.
Finally, she looks at me—really looks at me. “You saved my life,” she breathes.
The disbelief in her words hits harder than the knife ever could, but I continue to kneel before her, my hands rubbing friction up and down her arms in an attempt to warm her. “You couldn’t have expected me to just stand aside and watch you die,” I rasp.
Her head shakes slowly, her eyes glossing over as the tip of her nose starts to pinken. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she whispers.
There’s a beat of silence, thick and charged.
The house feels too quiet.
Too empty.
And yet the noise inside my head is blasting at full volume. “You don’t have to thank me,” I say. “I won’t ever let anyone touch you.”
As if taking note thatI’mtouching her, Aisling’s gaze drops to my hands, which still grasp her arms with near desperation.
For the first time, I notice they’re stained red—a stain I’ve spread to the fabric of her beautiful white peacoat.
It’s an ugly reminder of the fact that I’m so capable of violence—that my world is too easily capable of tainting hers.
And though it tears me apart to do so, I release her, rocking back on my heels to give her space.
“Don’t go,” she pleads, sliding forward on her chair to close the distance between us.
My breath catches as her warm scent invades my nose, making my muscles coil with anticipation.
I shouldn’t want this.
I shouldn’t feel the pull, the heat rising low in my gut.
Genevieve’s ghost looms, heavy with accusation, but Aisling is here, alive and safe.
And she’s looking at me with a vulnerability that threatens to undo me, a desperate need that calls to my very soul.
Everything I’ve been holding back surges forward, raw and consuming, and it shatters the last of my resolve.
My eyes drop to her full, inviting lips, and I lean in at the same time she does.
We come together with explosive heat, the kiss fire—immediate and devastating.
Every unwanted emotion bursts to life inside me, desire running rampant through my veins.
Aisling’s whiskey glass thunks as it hits the floor, and then her hands are fisting around the lapels of my suit jacket as if to anchor herself.
My palms find the soft silk encasing her waist, and I drag her from her chair as I pull her close.
For one suspended, dangerous moment, nothing else exists.
And I don’t know how I’ll ever let go.
25
AISLING
The searing heat of Raf’s lips on mine is enough to obliterate my sanity.
