by Elodie Colt
I give him an exaggerated eye-roll. “Ugh, come one. Don’t tell me you see the pain swirling in my eyes…”
“No,” he grumbles. “I just hate that he’s the reason you don’t wanna have sex with me.”
He sends me a goofy smile that’s supposed to cheer me up, but my expression remains somber.
“He isn’t. But he’s the reason why I had to leave the man I…” My verbal filter kicks in before the L-word slips over my lips, and I clear my throat, “Someone who meant a lot to me.”
Jack hooks a finger underneath my chin, willing me to look at him.
“Now there’s the pain swirling in your eyes,” he whispers, his gaze dipping to my parted lips.
I hold my breath, waiting for his kiss as he leans in, but he seems to fight with himself, unsure if he should use my vulnerability to his advantage. In the end, I tear my gaze away and set my beer aside, rising to my feet.
“I should go,” I mutter.
He stands up, too. “When will you give me your name already?”
I drag my lower lip between my teeth. Names are dangerous. It’s one of the reasons why I hadn’t asked Ross about his real name. If I knew, I would start digging. Not knowing is painful, but knowing would be downright excruciating.
Jack’s look turns from amused to mirthless, and I interrupt the heavy silence with a harrumph.
“Well, then… Thanks for everything, Jack—”
The words don’t make it over my tongue because he suddenly swallows them with his worming its way into my mouth. His large hand at the small of my back yanks me into him, leaving no space between us as he scorches me with a savage kiss. It’s raw and possessive and meant to carve a new memory into my mind that almost has the power to overshadow all the bad ones.
I don’t know how long I let him dominate my control, but eventually, the kiss turns from feral to soft until he eases our lips apart. We stare at each other with hooded eyes, panting.
“Send me a postcard when the bastard’s six feet under,” he mumbles over my mouth.
“Will do,” I say, taking a step back. “Take care.”
“You too, stranded girl.”
Whatever Jack did, he stitched some of my self-esteem back together. The pain that was so insufferable before, is now bearable. The memories that were so excruciating, are now tolerable. He gave me hope. Hope that I can change my life for the better. Hope that I will get my freedom one day.
I’m going to pull Zoya into my arms and tell her how much I love her. I’m going to move back into my apartment, resume my work, and make my daily yoga exercises. I’m going to buy a few more dragonflies and watch them grow. I’m going to live my life until, one day, I will send Luka into the one beyond.
It’s already dark when I pull into Zoya’s driveway. She texted me a few hours ago, asking when I’d come home. Said someone was waiting for me. No idea why she didn’t call. She hates texting. Well, I guess whoever it was, they hadn’t waited until nightfall to see me.
I breeze through the entrance door and set my helmet onto the drawer to my left.
“Guys, I’m home!”
I wait for the usual, ‘hi, sis,’ or ‘dinner is in the fridge,’ but I only hear a faint harrumph and a chair scraping. Frowning, I follow the light coming from the dining room only to stop dead on the threshold.
Zoya and Holly are sitting around the table, gripping each other’s hands as they send me an inscrutable yet discomforting stare. But there’s another person seated opposite them, and one glance at him short-circuits a weird synaptic connection inside my brain.
I know him. His striking features are familiar. Nick Crawford’s older brother, Nathan, I remember. Shit, why is he here? To offer me another interpretation gig? To let me know that they paid me too much last time and want their money back? Or maybe to accuse me of stealing the white gold brooch his brother gave me?
I open my mouth to voice these questions when something makes me hesitate. Something I can’t quite put my finger on. The way his smoky-gray eyes lock on me, oddly profound and foreboding yet contrite, pulls me into a state of hypnotic trance, drawing a complete blank in my mind.
Slowly, as if afraid to scare me, he rises to his feet, all six-foot three-inches, broad shoulders, and strong legs unfolding to their full height.
I take an involuntary step back. There’s something in the air. A sizzling static that’s about to crash down like thunder. His movements, his poise, the sound of his breaths trigger something inside me.
And that’s when thunder strikes, a million volts jolting through my body. Everything shuts down at once—my breath hitches, my blood freezes, my heart stops.
I’m a second away from dropping dead.
And yet, I’m still standing, rooted to the spot. The only part still capable of any movement is my eyeballs that drop to his neck.
A wide neck with a strong Adam’s apple and a chain.
A chain with a pendant.
My pendant.
And then he speaks the next words, and I’m a goner.
“Found at last, dragonfly girl.”
11
Ella
Silence.
I thought I knew what silence sounded like.
Like the silence in the Room. I remember how peculiarly unnatural it had felt to be deprived of all outside noises. To hear nothing but your own blood pumping. Pervasive and all-consuming.
Now, I know that silence sounds different.
No one dares to move. No one dares to breathe. I can’t even hear my heartbeat. It’s as if someone flicked a switch and froze time, paralyzing everyone within the blink of an eye.
“Ella?”
Zoya is the first to break the spell, and my head swivels to her looking at me in concern.
“Are you alright?” She places a hand over her heart. “Please, say something.”
I snap out of my reverie, and before I can fully comprehend what I’m doing, my feet move on their own accord. I bolt and flee to my room. Panting, I slam the door behind me.
“What the hell just happened?” I mutter to myself when I find my voice again.
My hand slaps the wall, searching for support, but my body is giving out on me, making me sag down until my butt hits the floor.
And just like that, all the puzzle pieces click into place with such alarming force and speed, it sparks off an explosion in my brain. A big bang that creates a shift in the universe.
Nathan Crawford is Ross.
My Ross.
My silent sin, my secret fantasy, my perfect match.
He’s wealthy because he’s CEO of Crawford Crescent. He’s not just working in the jewelry industry, he’s the head of one of the most renowned jewel galleries in the world. His father is no other than the famous Vincent Crawford, the biggest thief of the century.
At the fundraiser, Susan McElroy told me my dragonfly pendant came from her collection. He hadn’t just dropped by a random jewelry store. He knew Susan because they are business partners.
My brain is on a roll now, firing off an unstoppable chain reaction. At that rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if a cerebral aneurysm popped any second.
He told me we’d crossed paths after New Year—the Russian exhibition. He must have realized who I was shortly before I left, or he would have recognized my voice right away. That’s why they’d sent me an email, asking if I’d been the interpreter that evening. Then they set me up, offered me another gig at the fundraiser only to tell me that my services weren’t needed, so he could keep me close. He’d been watching me the entire evening, hiding behind a pillar and observing me from afar. He never showed his face or approached me because he couldn’t. Not after he got into that fight the day before.
I perk my ears. They are whisper-yelling outside, clueless as to what to do. Shit, what should I do?
Let him go? Push him away? Pull him close?
Laugh? Cry? Scream?
Footsteps shuffle closer, and I hold my breath. Not Zoya’s pounding gait. Not Holl
y’s fluttering bounce. A slow, purposeful stride that I’ve only ever heard when his bare feet hit the foam. Now, his shoes click on the wood, louder with each step he covers.
My toes curl when he reaches my door. His presence prickles along the back of my neck. He produces a long exhale before he pushes down the handle. I jump at the soft click, quickly averting my gaze to stare straight ahead.
He switches on the lights. A pair of light-brown suede bucks materialize in my periphery, their tips pointed at me. I press my eyes shut. Heat flushes up my face, and I pull up my knees, wrapping my arms around them as I sit there like a wounded puppy—small, weak, and embarrassingly scared.
Fabric rustles as he squats down on one knee, but I still can’t bring myself to look at him. He’s commanding my space, along with every molecule of air. His scent wafts over to my nose, the delicate aroma of honey and oak notes hitting my taste buds.
He remains quiet, giving me time to collect myself. Waiting for me to make a move.
“Breathe.”
His painfully familiar command whooshes the breath out of my lungs, and I utter an unsexy snort.
“Funny…” I mumble at last.
“It talks,” he says softly, making me chuckle at the memory of when we first met.
“From time to time.”
His stare weighs down on every inch of my skin, but I keep my eyes shut, my lashes twitching.
“How long have you been waiting?” I ask tentatively, just to hear his voice once more and cocoon myself in the deep timbre.
Something between a sigh and a laugh escapes him. “About six hours.”
“You don’t say…” I lean my head against the wall. “How did you find me?”
There’s a soft scraping sound as he rubs a hand over his mouth. “Does it really matter?”
I shrug. “Not now, no…”
Another beat of silence passes. The house is quiet. Zoya and Holly must have left to give us some alone time.
“Why won’t you look at me?” he asks at last, his voice tender.
My eyelids flutter. “Because it hurts.”
I can practically feel him biting his lip as he props a forearm over his bent knee. “In a good or a bad way?”
“Both,” is my candid answer.
See what this stupid dating program did to me? We’ve been trained to be blind around each other. Wired to depend on every sense other than sight. And just like that, he’s burning as bright as the sun. A glowing star blinding me as soon as I dare to look at him.
His eyes don’t deviate from me. They’ve been riveted on my face the entire time. I know because I can sense it. Sense him. I always could.
I slightly shake my head, rolling it against the wall. “It doesn’t hurt you to look at me, it seems.”
“It does,” he whispers. “But now that I see you up close, in the light, I can’t look away.”
His voice is so wistful, it squeezes a tear from my eye, slithering down my cheek. Before it can reach the rim of my lips, he catches it with his finger. I gasp when his tender touch triggers an avalanche of sensations, begging me to feel more of him.
A slight smacking noise reaches my ears, and I tune in to the sound. The two rings on his hand click together as he licks my tear from his finger.
Sighing, he brushes the pad of his thumb down my jaw. “Don’t do this to me, Ella,” he almost begs. “Don’t deny me what I’ve been craving to see for so long…”
My throat bobs, and he gently cups my chin, turning my agonized face to him.
“Show me your eyes. Please.”
A whimper zings over my lips, and I slowly crack my eyes open, blinking my surroundings into focus. The first thing I see is a breathtaking smile on a pair of full lips.
“There she is,” he hums.
He drops his hand and leans back a little, allowing me time to take him in. Smoky gray eyes are locked on me, framed by thick lashes and high, angular cheekbones. The five o’clock shadow peppering his sharp jawline pronounces his masculinity. His hair is a shade of mocha-brown, shorter at the sides and longer on top—long enough to flip some unruly strands over his forehead.
Tentatively, I lift my hand to rub one between my fingers. It reminds me of how they tickled my face when we kissed and scraped over my skin whenever he was on top of me.
The memory snaps my gaze to his torso. He’s as sturdy and well-toned as I remember. His black sweater stretches over his wide shoulders, and a pair of dark jeans cover his strong legs. Classy and too sexy for my weak libido.
“You’re not wearing a suit,” I point out.
He smiles. “I do own some other clothes, too.”
My finger continues its journey to unhurriedly explore more of his face, trailing a path down his slightly crooked nose. You wouldn’t notice it from afar, but I’ve memorized the dent there.
Smirking, I tap my nail against it. “You smacked into a pole of a stop sign there.”
He grumbles. “Of course, that’s what she remembers…”
I remember everything. So clearly, it hurts.
He doesn’t show any impatience as I go on with my exploration. A bystander would think I’ve never seen a grown-up man in my life gathering from how I feel him up in utter fascination. Fuck me, but this man is so god-damn beautiful, it wouldn’t surprise me if the sheer sight of him knocked me up.
My hand dips down to the pendant swaying over the collar of his sweater. The black engraving of the number six in Hebrew stares back at me. I brush a finger over it.
“Where’s the other one?” I ask. “The one from your father?”
“I only kept the one that mattered to me.”
While my heart turns into goo, he swallows, his eyes dropping to where his dragonfly pendant once rested around my neck.
“Sorry, I couldn’t…” I whisper. “I had to take it off.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
I drop my hand into my lap, shamelessly taking inventory of his features. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-three.”
I nod slowly. “Well, you know my age already…”
Sighing, he wipes a hand over his mouth. “Listen, I know you have a shit-ton of questions. I’m not going to lie to you—I’ve gone to great lengths to find you, broke the law, did a lot of things under the table… And yes, it included gathering personal information I had no right to obtain, but after I found out that your stalker came back, I couldn’t sit around and do nothing.”
His words come crashing down on me, a stinging reminder of why I shut him out of my life in the first place.
“You stepped into a lion’s den,” I mutter, scrambling up and walking over to the window to peek through the blinds. “Luka will hunt you down. You’re on top of his hit list now.”
“Just like he’s on mine.”
I turn around to face him. Face him. Still sounds daunting…
“Why do you think I quit Silent Sins?” I cross my arms as he rises to his feet. “I wanted him to leave you alone. To get you out of the line of fire.”
“And I made it my mission to get you out of the line of fire.”
I just shake my head, tears welling up in my eyes. I’m so sick of this. Always having to choose between the lesser of two evils. Always trading happiness for safety.
He cuts the distance between us, his expression determined. When he stops in front of me, I put a hand on his chest.
“Ross, I…”—he huffs—“sorry, uh… Nathan?”
His lips hint at a smile. “Why the question mark at the end?”
“Because it sounds weird. I mean, not like that… It’s a beautiful name, really, it’s just…” I stumble over my own words, exhaling in a loud blow as my voice becomes brittle. “It’s just a lot to take in, and I’m so confused and out of sorts, and I’m scared that—”
He saves me from ending the sentence, pulling me into his embrace and leaning my forehead against his strong chest. The moment his warmth seeps from his sweater into my skin, all mal
e musk and aftershave fragrance, my emotions get the better of me. A dam breaks behind my eyes, the one I’ve built the moment I turned my back on Silent Sins, unleashing all the tears and cries and whimpers I’ve locked up in my breakable heart.
The harder I sob, the tighter he holds me. His lips move against my hair as he croons deep, soothing words. I don’t know how long he rocks me in place, but eventually, my tears run dry, and my sobs diminish. When he’s assured I’m somewhat stable, his hand finds the gun in my waistband and pulls it out from underneath my jacket.
He frowns down at it, weighing it in his palm before he sets it onto the table behind me.
“You don’t have to do everything alone, Ella,” he says, framing my head with both hands. “Let me slay your demons for you.”
My eyes lock on his, and for a long moment, we just seize the here and now, reading each other, cataloging each other, healing each other. The sight of his face is still so oddly astounding—mind-blowing and almost devastating—it brings me to my knees.
I buckle, but he must have anticipated my reaction, knowing I would crumble at some point. His arms band around me lighting fast, and his mouth slams down on mine. We are two magnets of opposite poles, unable to fight the pull any longer, and now, we’ve finally crashed into each other.
We’ve finally found home.
It’s as if the world is about to end, and the only thing we can do is cram all our devotion and passion into this one, single moment. I clutch and claw and bite, eager to get to his skin, desperate to become one with him. He yanks my jacket from my shoulders, and before it hits the floor with a loud smack, he hoists me up and plonks me down onto the table. The aquarium beside me clinks from the vibration, the water inside sloshing against the glass as he almost rips the button from my jeans in his haste to get me naked.
Gathering all my multitasking skills, I clumsily kick off my boots behind his legs while I keep my mouth fused to his. He tears down my zipper, and I quickly flex my hips so he can discard my jeans. I want to see him naked, too, but I’m clearly not as talented as him, fumbling with his belt buckle until he takes matters into his own hands.