doesn’t look at me, her body slouching forward as she focuses on the journal in her lap. I know she’s overthinking this.
“He would have killed you if Lincoln didn’t get you out of that house. And what’s to stop him from trying again? Even if it isn’t you, what’s to stop him from marrying again and doing the same thing to another woman?”
Her head lifts, and she turns her body to face me fully. “It just seems wrong.”
I shrug, my eyes drifting down to where her shirt rises up her thighs, to where her panties peek out, the bruises on her inner thighs. She notices and tries to cover herself with the book she holds.
Grinning, I glance back at her face. “Wrong and right are subjective in my world.”
“What is your world, Ari? I feel like you know everything about me, and I don’t know the first thing about you.”
Because she doesn’t. Nobody knows much about me. Not even Lincoln.
“Tell me your real name. Give me that, at least.”
“If I do that-“
“You can’t let me go regardless,” she says, her eyes pinning mine. “I know where you live. If I really planned to turn you in for everything you’ve done, I can direct them to your door.”
Excellent point, and one I wish she couldn’t make. I would give anything to go back and change the events that led her here.
It also removes any argument I have as to why she can’t know who I am.
“I can’t tell you everything about me. There are things you won’t want to know.”
My thoughts go to the way I’d wronged her, to the one sticking point that has doomed us from the very beginning. She still doesn’t know what happened with her father, and despite having thought about it, I have no good explanation for what I’ve done.
Her father never threatened her. Never harmed her. His death was solely about money.
Dropping the journal to the floor, Adeline pushes to her feet and crosses the room. Her hands lock over my shoulders and she lowers her body to straddle my lap. She brushes her fingertips down over my bare chest, traces the muscles in my abdomen as she studies me.
I study her back, watching the way her eyes move over my skin, every tiny change in her careful expression.
“I should hate you. And I do fear you. But at the same time, I want to know you.”
Gaze lifting to mine, she pins me in place. “How crazy is that?”
My pulse is steady beneath her hands, but still it feels as if my heart is ripping through my chest. To have her so close. To hear her speak to me as if she knows exactly who I am. It’s something I’ve denied myself for so long.
“It’s insane,” I answer, my voice rough.
Her head tilts just slightly, her mouth pulling into a teasing grin. “Isn’t that what you’ve admired about me?”
My hands grip her thighs, a warning in the strength of my fingers. “You’ve always had the annoying habit of putting yourself in bad situations.”
Smile stretching, she cups my cheeks with her palms, holding me in such a tender embrace that I realize I’ve never allowed any woman to touch me like this before.
“Tell me your name. Give me one question a day to learn about you. We’re both already screwed in this. You can’t let me go, and you know it.”
Quieting for a moment, she sighs. “And I’m not sure I want you to.”
Fucking nuts. But then, she wouldn’t be Adeline if she wasn’t.
My teeth clench at the thought of being honest. I haven’t told anyone my real name since the day I first killed someone. It feels too close to the truth of who I am.
But if it’s honesty she wants, it’s honesty I’ll give her.
“When you learn all there is to know about me, you’ll change your mind. You’ll run. Why ruin this?”
She ignores the warning and hits me with a question that strikes right where it should, one that I’ve never bothered to ask myself in all the years I refused to approach her.
“Why are you afraid for me to know you?”
The simple answer is I killed her father. I think any person might find that objectionable.
“What makes you think I’m afraid of anything?”
Her eyes dart to the mess near the cupboards and all the evidence of my having stalked her for years before they return to me.
“Why follow a person for as many years as you have and not say hello? I