Page 172 of Damsel in Disguise

Affection—something I’ve spent far too many years wanting from this man that I was never supposed to have.

A breathless gasp escapes me despite my efforts to suppress it. My nails instinctively dig into his shoulder while my body melts for him.

The crowd erupts around us.

Cheers roll through the club resembling thunder, followed by whistles, applause, and deafening screams from strangers who somehow become spectators to the most intimate moment of my life.

Their excitement should embarrass me. It should pull me back to reality. Instead, it reaches me only as distant noise muffled beneath the frantic rhythm of my own heartbeat.

None of them matter.

Not even the hundreds of people watching us.

The only thing that matters is him—Alistair.

The monster hidden behind charm and dimples and infinite blue eyes.

The man I’ve spent years watching from afar, loving from afar, dreaming about from afar.

And standing there in the center of a sea of strangers, wrapped in haunting music, makeshift gothic fantasies, I realize there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than being exactly where I am right now—delicately held in his arms while the world burns itself away around us.

Just him and me. Suspended in this moment.

Somewhere deep inside my heart, with absolute certainty, I know I’ll remember this moment for the rest of my life as the best day I’ve ever lived.

50. MISCALCULATION

alistair

Yes I’m drunk, but never enough to think it would cloud my judgment or dull my senses.

At least, that’s what I’d believed.

I’d calculated the alcohol carefully—just enough to make the act convincing for Ariella. Just enough to sell the performance without surrendering total control of myself in the process.

Apparently, I miscalculated the effect alcohol would have on me when Ariella is this close.

Somehow, we stumble into her apartment without caring about anything beyond the fact that our mouths refuse to separate.

I barely remember driving us here. Barely remember deciding that her apartment was the better option.

Leaving her bike behind was deliberate.

I wasn’t about to let her ride home in this state. I also had no intention of leaving her alone long enough to arrange another way back. The bike can wait until morning. She can’t.

Besides, neither of us seems particularly eager to return to my mansion tonight.

Not after what happened there.

She was so dazed she didn’t even point out that I was driving in the opposite direction from my place. Then again, after the show I put on back at the club, I can hardly blame her.

Even my own thoughts have been reduced to little more than fragments ever since.

Right now, her legs are wrapped tightly around my waist as I carry her through the door, kissing her the entire time.

The moment we’re inside, I kick the door shut behind us without breaking contact.

For some strange reason, I can’t stop kissing her. Neither can she.