Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 52592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 210(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
He tastes like heartbreak and longing, perhaps belonging to both of us. And even though I know I should pull away, I don’t.
Conflicted feelings whirl around me as I twist my hand against his shirt, clenching the fabric in a small fist to keep myself from feeling as if I’ll implode with desire. Every night since I was a teenager, this man has invaded my waking and sleeping hours. Thoughts of him have become a legend in my mind, for all the wrong reasons. And now, the monster of the Ghost that I’ve created in my head is suddenly the man that my heart wants. My usual clear-headed, pragmatic way of approaching things, the psychological profiler portion of my brain, has completely turned off. Now, I’m acting on impulse and pure, unbridled passion only.
If the kiss is any reflection of how Nico is feeling, then it sure as hell seems like he is feeling the same inner turmoil that I am. It’s not a soft embrace, or a gentle pressing of our lips—it’s an almost primal gnashing of teeth and thrashing of heads as our hands grasp everywhere that we can lay claim to each other’s bodies. It feels as if my chest is going to burst with yearning and as if my lungs will collapse under the sheer weight of it all as I try to catch my breath.
The kiss feels as if it lasts forever, and also not nearly long enough. But then, my fantasy is suddenly pierced by reality as a single image invades my brain—the sight of Nico that night, crouched down beside the dumpster in the shadows, and the sound of my mother’s laughter right before her killer stepped out of the dark to shoot her.
My senses overload instantly, and I feel as if I might short-circuit, or at least, have a total panic attack. I put the palms of both of my hands flat against his chest and push Nico away.
As soon as he feels my resistance, he lets me go, staring in shock, chest heaving, his eyes wide and crystalline blue. He doesn’t say a word. He simply waits to see what I’m going to do next.
Here, standing in this kitchen with just the two of us alone in the desert and no one around for miles, things feel different. But that doesn’t change who this man is. It doesn’t wipe his ledger clean, and it doesn’t undo anything that's happened. And suddenly, the mix of all my emotions and the turmoil within me that wrestles between wanting Nico and wanting to hate him, is too much to bear. I feel myself breaking down into hysteria, and there’s no way for me to stop it. I’ve kept my emotions bottled up and in check for so long that I have no idea what to do with them now that they are pouring out like a rushing river of uncontrolled feelings. Embracing emotional vulnerability and letting myself trust are two things that I’ve resisted ever since that fateful night.
What if this is all a game to him? What if he lured me out here for this very reason, to distract me from searching for the truth? Perhaps the Ghost is shutting me down because I was getting too close to finding something out? Panic sets in when I realize how easily I let myself be blinded by desire instead of staying levelheaded and alert. This whole thing, and all this time, might have just been one big game that the Ghost has been playing with my life.
“What if it was you?” I ask him as I take a few steps back, holding my hand to my chest as if I can force it to stop pounding against my ribcage. It’s loud enough for me to hear it in my ears, and I wonder if he can hear it beating out of control, too.
“What are you talking about?” he asks, looking equally as disheveled and disarmed as I feel.
“What if you are the man behind my mother’s death, and your presence in the alley that night was just a diversion to keep me from ever figuring that out?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You know that’s not true. You saw the other man shoot your mother just as much as I did,” he says, sounding exasperated. “And you saw me shoot him as soon as he did it.”
“Yes, but maybe he was working for you,” I say as I follow my railing thoughts to a conclusion.
“Why would I have killed one of my own men if that was the case? Come on, Elle, you’re smarter than this. You’re letting your emotions cloud your judgement.”
“I doubt you would even blink an eye at killing a man whom you hired to complete a task for you. You could have staged the whole thing that night.” The more accusations I hurl at him, the more I feel myself trying to create emotional distance from Nico so that I don’t let down my guard with him again.