Midnight Sommelier - Anne Malcom Page 0,58
coffee. “The second you show your fangs to my boys, I will make sure you never see them again.” I sipped my coffee. “Now, I would appreciate it if you got the fuck out of my house.”
One Month Later
It was midnight.
Or sometime after.
I was full of wine. My limbs were heavy from exertion, my naked body covered in a thin sheen of sweat.
It had become a routine, but this was anything but. Every night was different. Zeke didn’t lose his fire. My hunger was never sated.
“We wouldn’t have had ... this, if it weren’t for my husband dying,” I said, trailing my finger over his naked pec. Luna’s name was tattooed over his heart.
His gaze was iron and fire. “No,” he agreed.
I waited for more. For him to elaborate on the single word spoken with such coldness. Of course, with Zeke, I never got what I expected.
“No?” I repeated.
He nodded, still not taking his eyes off me. “No.”
Irritation bubbled up in my throat as it always did when I was around this man. Just as I was about to huff some curses under my breath and storm back to my house—something I should’ve done anyway—he brushed the back of his fingers over my jaw. The tenderness of the gesture shocked me silent and still.
Zeke stayed quiet, eyes running over me almost lazily, but with the baseline intensity that always hummed through him. My body responded carnally to that lazy intensity, to the brush of his fingertips across my jaw.
“If your husband hadn’t died, you would’ve stayed whole. You would’ve been flawless. Sure, a few surface scratches that are inescapable. But you would’ve been whole. Beautiful. But yeah, you would’ve been nothin’ more than a neighbor. Been around plenty of beautiful women, need more than that. But you’re broken now. You’ve got scars instead of scratches—the ugliest kind of scars that never heal pretty. I don’t do well around people who aren’t already scarred. Wouldn’t have touched you if you weren’t broken in a way that can’t be fixed.” He paused. “Because, baby, I’m not gonna fix you.”
He drew lines on my back. “Tell me about him.”
I froze. He’d never asked this before. It was unspoken between us that the ghost of my dead husband would go on ignored. But tonight, something was changing. It had been changing for a while. If I opened my mouth, if I spoke about David, things would change further. He would get in deeper.
“He wasn’t perfect,” I said, still staring at the ink on his chest. “Fuck, our relationship was far from it. There were days where I was unhappy. Where I wondered if I’d made a mistake. Where I sort of hated him.” I swallowed. “But I loved him. I loved him with everything I was. He was my best friend. He held my hand while he slept. He let me cry over shit that didn’t matter. Got up to feed the boys when I was too tired. He cooked dinner every night. He told me I was beautiful every day. He was always on my side. He was the first to say sorry because he knew I was too stubborn. He was my best friend, the center of my life, and I will love him forever. I will mourn him forever. I won’t heal from this loss. I’ll see him in my boys and I’ll try to remember what it’s like to kiss him because I’m terrified I’ll forget. There is a hole inside me that’s never going to be filled.”
He listened to every single word, let them all sink in. “I don’t want to fill you up,” he said finally, after leaving me hanging for a full minute. “I don’t want you to be whole and healthy. Because I’m selfish, sure. But if there was a chance I thought you might heal, I wouldn’t be standing here right now. You won’t though. I know that. I know you’re broken. I’m okay with being second best to a dead man if that’s what I’m gonna be, but I don’t think that’s how you work. I think you’re gonna find new places for me—for us. Different places. Darker ones.”
I didn’t move. Didn’t retreat, though he gave me the moment to do so.
His hand settled on my jaw. Firm, bordering on painful. Then he moved. On top of me, poised at my entrance, hard and ready.
“At first, I just wanted to fuck you,” he said against my mouth. His hand trailed up my hip toward