Amia takes her by the hand and pulls her aside, out of earshot.Good. Perfect.
I make my way toward the food, even though I don’t have an appetite, the knots in my stomach are filling me up just fine. I know I should put something in my stomach if I don’t want to succumb to the full effect of whatever I’ve been drinking.
But I’m already under the effect, because instead of heading for the food, my legs carry me to the place Ivana went. Around the hedges and toward the back—the darker side of the house, away from the party—where a man sits on a wooden bench, his back to me.
Chapter 11
Elowen
“Get lost,” he snaps without turning around.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, ready to turn when he stands up abruptly and faces me.
“It wasn’t meant for you,” he mutters. Darkness gathers in his gaze, the hardness in it softening the longer ours stay locked.
“Then who?”
The way he holds me in his attention sparks beneath my skin, waking every cell.
“Someone came here before you.”
I walk to the bench and sit. My legs feel weak, the alcohol has made them incapable of holding my weight.
I look up at him. With the warm, dim lights framing his face, his features aren’t clear, and this sets off a train of the same thought:He’s Salvario. My Salvario. How is it possible for him to be just like him? No, it’s not. He’s my Salvario.
I reach out to hold his hand, but stop when I see there’s no glove on it, and the skin isn’t burnt and rough. I drop my handback into my lap. His fist clenches at his side.He isn’t Salvario. He’s Hunter Blackwood, from Toronto. He only resembles the man I love.
“Why do you look at me like that?” I murmur, lifting my gaze to him.
“How?”
“Like my Salvario.”
He lets out a long, audible exhale, turning his head away. He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes come back to me soon after they leave.
“Come sit,” I say, patting the space beside me.
He sits. The smell of tobacco is stronger now than the citrus-and-spice of his cologne.
“You shouldn’t smoke. It’s not good for your health,” I murmur, resting my head on the backrest of the bench and turning toward him.
“You shouldn’t drink.”
I turn onto my side more, finding a more comfortable position for my heavy head and body. “But I’m not an addict.”
“I’m not an addict either,” he says in that monotone Salvario voice.
I blink slowly, heavy with sleep. “Yeah, right. Every addict says that.”
“I know the things that could make me an addict, and smoking isn’t one of them.”
“What are those things?” I slur.
He turns his head and looks ahead, into the dark. I want his eyes on me, I need to feel alive in the way only those eyes can make me feel.
I place my forefinger under his chin and turn his face toward me. The light stubble pricks at my fingertip; his skin is warm against mine, the difference in temperature searing through me.
His eyes darken, not a change in color from the lighting, but a shift in the intention behind his gaze on me. I’ve seen that look far too many times to misinterpret it. My body knows what follows when those gray eyes lock onto me like that, and it heats up in anticipation.
