Page 30 of Dirty Hearts

It was reasonable to assume all of it because that was how I behaved. Like she never mattered to me.

I wasn’t like this, never like this with anyone. I didn’t show my true thoughts or allow anyone to get under my skin. That was what made me ruthless. It gave me the ability to switch and adapt when I needed to. Emotions were trouble. Especially ones like mine.

It was late, really late. As to what time it was, I didn’t know. All I knew was, I’d indulged in the angel six more times, touching her in all the ways I wanted to, feasting on her body in all the ways I wanted to, getting lost in her perfection in every which way that I wanted to.

She fell asleep in my bed. The bed I’d first made love to her in.

I sat on the window ledge in my boxers watching her, committing her to memory as I tried to figure out what the hell I was going to do.

What the hell I was doing now.

Probably messing with her life even more because truth be told, I was scared. Scared to lose her. Lose her forever.

Marissa had never come to this house. This was the place I’d shared with Luc. The mansion we’d called our bachelor pad.

Today, I lived here by myself.

Marissa and I had lived near the beach when we were together. I got the place after she told me she was pregnant.

As I looked over at Ava, asleep in the soft moonlight, the moonlight that made her hair look silver, I remembered it all.

The crushed look of pain on her face when she found out Marissa and I were together, and she just took it. She put on a front like she was fine. Like a robot, no feelings, no emotion, she just went along with what was going on.

The whole ordeal had lasted close to two years but felt like forever.

Luc was right. She deserved the truth. The whole truth. I did owe her that. My gaze drifted to the nightstand next to the bed. In the top drawer was a diary I kept with all the sightings ever of Goliath. At one point, I’d verged on insanity, going deep into research, looking for all the places he might be. And where he wasn’t.

It wasn’t healthy, and was I going to spend the next ten years living like this?

The woman in my bed made me want to live. I wanted her just like I knew I would.

I knew it, preempted it. I knew that anything more than the shadows would make me want more. And look at me. Here I was. I’d had my fair share of her, and still I wanted more.

She shuffled, and a soft moan sounding like a little purr hummed from her lips. I watched her turn and reach out her hand, searching. Searching for me.

I missed that. I missed this.

I always knew what we’d had was too good for me. It always felt like I’d lived in some kind of a dream or a bubble and one day, the fucking bubble would pop and land me on my ass.

When it did happen, I was hardly surprised, but I was still shocked at the fucked-up way it happened.

Ava’s delicate fingers ran over the silk of the sheets. She wasn’t awake yet, and it was fascinating to watch what she did in her in-between. Between asleep and awake.

It was nice to see that she still wanted me.

We could lie to ourselves, but the truth was the truth. The silky sheet slid down the toned flat of her stomach, showing off the massive globes of her breasts. The little light pink tips of her nipples were hard, ready and aching to be sucked.

She had always been the kind of woman who could get a guy in trouble, and I had always been the guy who spelled trouble, so that worked perfectly.

An awareness seemed to wash over her when her hands came away with nothing but the sheets. She thought I’d left again. I could see it in her reaction, and then she bolted upright.

She stared me straight in the eye as her beautiful features softened, but then it was like reality seeped in. I moved to her quickly before it could take her from me.

“Claudius,” she breathed as I scooped her up and pulled her close to me so I could plant kisses along her neck.

“Shhhhh.” I kissed the crook of her neck and worked my way down to her chest.

“I’m at your place,” she whispered more to herself than me.