Then I will be reckless and dangerous.
She put her palm against his chest and the caged animal wanted to cry out in ecstasy. She hadn’t touched him for two hundred years and now, with her small hand on him, she had him on the verge howling.
He closed his eyes and tried to focus on something—anything—other than the bliss of her touch. And how wonderful she smelled. And how if he just leaned in…ever so slightly…he could taste her…
He swallowed. “Scar.” He opened his eyes. “You need to leave.” Against every desire the animal within him had, he wrapped his fingers around her wrist and gently pulled her hand from his chest.
The animal roared in protest.
She shook her head. “No.”
He could feel his resolve crumbling and panic began to overtake him. He exhaled, wishing for a miracle to save him from touching her, killing her. “Don’t be difficult.”
He paced to the other side of the room.
“Why do you keep pushing me away?” she asked, like she didn’t already know the answer. Like she didn’t understand in great detail what his motivations were.
He strode to the door, frustrated and impatient and turned on. “I’m not having this conversation with you again.”
“Do you think pushing me away will make me stop caring about you?”
God, I hope not.
He opened the door. “You need to leave.”
“Maybe you’ve stopped loving me, but my feelings for you haven’t changed.”
Stopped loving her? She thought he’d stopped loving her?
He slammed the door, the animal clawing through the bars of his cage with delirious anger. “First of all, I couldn’t stop loving you even if I tried. And I’ve tried.” He laughed without humor, wishing his life wasn’t so screwed up. “God, how I’ve tried. But I am completely lost to you. I am lost and empty and broken—“
“My heart is broken, too—“
“My heart is not broken Scar. My heart is dead!” He didn’t mean to scream it, but he had. And the bars were breaking and his claws were bleeding and he needed her to get the hell away from him immediately. “It is a hollow black object that sits in my chest without purpose, haunting me with memories.”
He’d never said a more honest thing in his life and now, now that the words were free, he felt the sorrow he’d always tried so hard to keep at bay slam into him and wrestle with the desire that spurred on the animal. “It’s dead,” he repeated.
And then she said it. She said the thing he could not let himself hear.
“I love you.” Her eyes were big and full and he wanted to kiss the flashing blue from their depths and fall into black oblivion with her like a crazy person.
He tightened his jaw. “Loving me is reckless.”
“It’s honest.”
“It’s dangerous, Scar!”
I’m dangerous! Run away. Run away.
“So?” She threw her hands up. “Loving anyone is dangerous! There’s always going to be something at stake.”
“Your life is not just ‘something’, Scarlet.” He emphasized the ‘let’ in her name. “It’s everything.” His voice cracked.
The animal clawed and moaned and whimpered and roared.
Good God, he needed her to leave.
“So, what then? You’re just going to keep pushing me away because you’re scared?”
“I push you away to keep you safe.”
“You push me away because it’s easier!”
“Easy? Easy? Are you insane?” His heart was as restless as the feral creature inside him. “Nothing about this is easy! Do you think it’s easy to see you with Gabriel? Do you think it’s easy to watch you die over and over again?”
“I don’t know what to think, Tristan!” She fisted her hands. “You treat me like I’m a disease. You don’t talk to me. You don’t touch me—“
“Because you could die!” Now it was he who roared.
“I’ll die anyway!”
Tristan’s heart skipped a beat because he knew it was true. She would die. She would die and he hadn’t yet found a way to save her. He wanted to cry. To howl. To break free of the cage and cling to her for the remainder of her heartbeats.
She continued, “We have no cure, no fountain. I’m as good as dead no matter what. But you still barely look at me—“
“Is that what you want?” He was feverish now. No longer in control of his temper or his body. “You want me to look at you?” He marched up to her face, staring at her with angry, terrified eyes. “Well, here you go, Scar. Me looking at you. How’s this? Better? Easier?” He exhaled and felt the tremor of desire run through her and instantly knew he’d made a mistake.
He was too close. Too close.
Pain. Heartbreak. Sorrow.
“No, it’s not easier!” She yelled, lifting her chin to look up at him more fully, her lips almost brushing his. And all he saw was Scarlet in the trees. Scarlet in the forest. The sharp-tongued thief who had captured his heart and wound herself around his soul for half a millennium. He was lost. He was so lost.
“It hurts like hell,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears at all she wanted from him. Everything he’d kept from her for so long. “But it’s better than feeling like you don’t want me.”
“I do want you!” he growled, bars coming down. “I want you more than my next breath.”
“Then stop pushing me away!”
Defeat. Pressure. Love. Want. Want. Want.
“I can’t have you, Scar!”
“Too bad!” A tear fell down her face and Tristan couldn’t breathe. “I’m already yours! I was yours in the forest and I’m yours right here—“
And the caged animal broke free.
Crushing his mouth to hers, Tristan pulled her up against him and kissed her like he’d wanted to for so many years.
And she kissed him back, her emotions spilling out of her heart and falling into his soul and making him feel content and unbroken for the first time in centuries.
She was small in his arms, melting into him and letting him hold her. He’d missed this. Her body by his, her mouth in surrender, her heart pressed against his chest like it should have been their entire existence.
He kissed and kissed and demanded and kissed some more. Scarlet clawed at his shoulders as he grabbed her hips and pressed her into the wall, pushing up against her to trap her there, in his arms, where no one could take her away from him.
She had her hands in his hair and he had his hands under her shirt, feeling the soft skin of her stomach.
Scarlet exhaled as he moved his mouth to her ear, pulling shivers from her body. His mouth moved to her jaw, her throat. He couldn’t get enough of her.
He held steady to her hips, locking her in place against his body as his lips went back to hers. She was completely intoxicating.