Master of salt & bones

“So, what happened in the courtyard earlier …”

“Was fun.”

“Fun.” The lack of humor in her voice is telling of the rage and confusion that must be clamoring inside of her.

I want nothing more than to sweep her off her feet like the white knight she’s probably dreamed about since she was a little girl, but to what end? So she can be as miserable as my mother? As miserable as Amelia was? Like a bird trapped inside a box with no holes to breathe.

Gaze lowered, she shakes her head. “I don’t get you, Lucian. I want to, but I don’t.”

“You’re not the first, and I doubt you’ll be the last.”

“So you … you want nothing to do with me.”

That couldn’t be farther from the truth, but I answer with more lies. “I want to do a number of things to you, but that’s all, I’m afraid.”

“And what if I was okay with that?”

This girl. This excruciatingly beautiful, exotic girl who has my dick ready to tear through the zipper right now.

“I’d think you were a very foolish girl.”

Lips pressed together, she nods. “Well … you’re not the first, and I doubt you’ll be the last.” She finally backs herself toward the door. “For the record? Aside from the mishap with your mother, tonight was the best night of my life,” she says, and she spins around toward the elevator.

Every muscle in my body is wound tight, listening to the evidence of her retreat. The ding of the elevator. The sniffles. The sliding of the doors. My opportunity to have her slipping out of my grasp.

The moment she’s gone, I pour myself another drink, hand trembling with fury.

This is my curse. The legacy my father left behind, of mindless sex and misery.

I raise the glass for a sip, teeth grinding inside my skull, but slam it against the desktop so the liquid splashes out onto the wood.

Screwing my eyes shut, I succumb to the visual inside my head. The look of ecstasy on Isa’s face, her legs wrapped around my body, her moans echoing off the walls.

I need her out of my system, out of my head. Every waking thought is wrapped around this girl, strangling my opposition, begging me for one taste. One touch.

I want the forbidden. I want the one thing that irritates me more than anything. The one thing I shouldn’t want.

Isa.