Page 56 of Atone

Her soul.

I don’t hold tight enough to steal her air, but enough to drag her from her dream and force her to come to me.

Mila’s green eyes flash open, and her entire body tenses. Her hands fly to my wrist. Her vision tunnels as she processes who is standing over her. What should be terror is a question in her gaze. One she’s known the answer to longer than she’s allowed herself to admit.

She blinks, and I wait for her to fight me.Fear me. If she only knew how badly I want to wrap my fingers tighter. How much I need to steal every last drop of her soul. Then she’d realize I’m no better than the answers she’s looking for.

Her tongue traces her full lower lip, and I want to lean down to taste her all over again.

To watch her is one thing.

To have had her is another.

“You’re here.” She presses her perfect lips together as she processes.

I nod as a tear slips down her cheek. A lovely crack in her polished façade that I reach up to brush away.

“You were having a nightmare.” I hold my thumb up, and it glistens from the dampness of her tear.

“I have nightmares every night.”

“I know.” I sit on her bed when I should leave.

I shouldn’t have come here, and I shouldn’t have woken her up. Eventually, the tower will tip, and this will all come crumbling down like it always does. It’s in her best interest to fear me.

So why does she reach for my hand instead? She pulls it to her chest, over her heart. Mila is all muscle and blood and panic.

So petite.

So breakable.

One hard push, and I could crack all the way through her ribs to wrap my hand around the organ that fascinates me. I could make her heart mine without question.

Mila tugs my arm, pulling me down beside her, not caring that my shoes will make a mess of her sheets or that she’s welcoming a monster into her bed. No one sees me like she does, and I can’t decide if that will be my salvation or her destruction.

“Lie with me, Alex,” she whispers, settling with her back against my chest as she wraps my arm around her.

I bury my nose in her hair and breathe her in.

Lilacs.

Summer rain.

Possibility.

My palm flattens where she continues to hold it over her heart. It’s racing beneath her ribs.

“Sleep,” I whisper, even if it cracks at the end.

Even if it burns in my throat, and I know I shouldn’t have said it.I shouldn’t have said anything at all.

But she needs to hear it so she can settle. At least one of us deserves to rest, and the devil knows I never will.

18

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN STALKING ME?

MILA