Page 52 of Walking in Darkness

“Get used to it, Princess, because I plan on spending my whole life staring at you.”

Then he reached out and snagged a piece of doughnut I’d torn off and popped it into his mouth.

“Hey,” I tried to admonish, but it was full of a giggle as he reached out to steal another piece and I swatted his hand away. I pulled the plate against my chest and curled my arms around it. “Don’t you know to never come between a woman and her sweets?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, aghast.

My brows drew together. “Says the guy who ate half my doughnut.”

“What can I say, yours looked better than mine.”

“That’s just rude. You need to pick better next time.” I tried to keep up the playful affront, but everything softened when Pax reached into the white bag on the table and produced a second strawberry doughnut.

He set it on my napkin. “Just because you’re my princess, I got you two.”

“You do love me,” I murmured as I ripped it to shreds, then put the largest piece into my mouth.

I groaned at the sweetness that coated my tongue.

Pax suddenly leaned all the way across the table and grabbed both of my hands. He pulled them to the middle and leaned forward to get closer to me.

I did the same, moving in his direction, drawn to the intensity he exuded.

We both leaned so far over it that his mouth was a breath away from mine when he whispered, “If it was ever a question, Aria, I want to make it clear. The way I love you. The way it feels when I look at you.”

His hands tightened around mine.

“It’s like I’m shredding apart because I can’t hold the magnitude of it inside. It’s like there’s not enough room inside me to hold the fullness of it. It is greater than anything I’ve ever known, and goes far beyond this reality and into the next. Far beyond thislifeand into the next,” he emphasized.

Emotion pulled taut in his expression.

Gravity.

Passion.

Fervor.

“It’s unending. Eternal. And whatever that eternity might look like, the only thing I know for sure is I will meet you there.”

Moisture filled my eyes, and I squeezed back. “I will always meet you there. Wherever you are.”

We stayed like that for the longest time, before Pax suddenly went rigid when the bell dinged above the door and it swept open. I peeked behind me to see a woman step inside.

A police officer.

Pax was far more exposed, and he slowly shifted so his face was better concealed, the backs of his shoulders angled in that direction. Peering around the side of the high booth, I held my breath, waiting to see what she would do.

We’d thought to leave two nights ago after what had happened in the city, but I’d been so drained that I couldn’t move. We’d decided to stay here until I had rested.

Pax had checked the local news to find out if they were searching for us.

He’d found a news report of three men found dead outside a building. All had been arrested previously for drug possession and facilitating prostitution, and that article had speculated it had been some kind of deal gone bad.

I could only hope that belief remained.

It wasn’t as if those three men were the only reason the police might be looking for us. Not after Pax had broken into the mental facility to rescue me. I still thought of Jill often, the nurse who’d believed there was more to my story than my chart claimed, and had helped me escape.

I knew her life had to be intrinsically changed; no hope for her ever working in nursing again. Plus, I had no idea if any sort of charges had been brought against her.