Never Sweeter (Dark Obsession #1)
Page 25
“If you’re waiting for me to fault you for that, you’re going to be here a long time, babe.”
He looked up at that, in a way that reminded her of something.
And then she remembered: it was what she used to do, to stop herself crying in front of him.
“I love you. Do you know that?”
“I don’t see how I could possibly not. You’ve told me in every conceivable way.”
“I’m gonna keep telling you, every day and all the time and always. And I have time now to do it. I got five hundred thousand dollars in my back pocket and nowhere else I need to be.”
Five hundred thousand dollars! her mind screamed.
But she couldn’t focus on that now. Nor on where it would lead—because by God she would make sure it wasn’t somewhere bad. No, all she could think about was the world now opening up before them, built on trust and truth and love. Oh, so much love.
“No more wrestling?”
“No more wrestling. No more of anything except all the things we should have done seven years ago, before I fucked it up. All the movie marathons we missed and the hand holding we didn’t do…the music we didn’t share while lying on your bed in a room I never saw…” he started, voice wavering so much by the end that she had to pick up the thread where he had put it down.
She just didn’t expect it to be so easy.
As though the life they should have led had been inside her all along.
“Splitting pizza slices outside DiMarco’s, safe and warm inside your jacket.”
“And me driving you home, with ‘Pocketful of Sunshine’ blaring out of the speakers.”
“Then in the summer…in the summer maybe you take me to the beach…and draw our names in the sand…” Letty said, her own voice wavering now—for the loveliness of the past that never happened, and for fingertips that swiped away the tears.
“God yeah, honey. I’m right there. I’m doing it now, with a heart around them both. Do you see it?”
“I see it. I really see it. I see exactly how sweet our lives could have been.”
She was crying openly when she said it, one hand pressing his to the side of her face. Holding him there, so he would hold her. Though she didn’t need to.
He had hold of her just fine. He would always have hold of her now.
“Oh my love. My Letty—” he said as he drew her to him. “Our lives have only just begun.”
For all of you everywhere who know what it’s like.
Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank my editor, Sue, for having the patience of a saint. And my husband, for doing his level best to get me well again so I could actually write this thing. But most of all I’d like to thank the twelve-year-old me, for not giving up. I did tell you it would get better.
BY CHARLOTTE STEIN
Dark Obsession
Never Loved
Never Sweeter
Never Better (coming soon)
About the Author
Charlotte Stein is the acclaimed author of over thirty short stories, novellas, and novels. When not writing deeply emotional and intensely sexy books, she can be found eating jelly turtles, watching terrible sitcoms, and occasionally lusting after hunks. She lives in West Yorkshire, England, with her husband and their now totally real and completely nightmarish dog. For more on Charlotte, visit:
charlottestein.net
Facebook.com/CharlotteSteinAuthor
@charlotte_stein
mightyviper.tumblr.com
The Editor’s Corner
April is a promise of spring and Loveswept romance is here to warm things up.
L. P. Dover continues her edgy, emotionally gripping Second Chances series with the story of a beautiful widow who can’t resist a chiseled NFL player in Catching Summer. The Society of Gentlemen series from K. J. Charles continues with the sizzling A Gentleman’s Position. For a new series, ladies, meet Micah, a man who takes what he wants—until he meets the one woman he needs in Stacey Kennedy’s Bound Beneath His Pain. An epic love affair steals the show in Stina Lindenblatt’s This One Moment. Annie Rains continues her small-town Hero’s Welcome series with a cowboy turned marine in Welcome Home, Cowboy. Gillian Archer is hot on the trend of MC romance, introducing her True Brothers series with Ruthless. And MC Sons of Odin returns with Violetta Rand’s irresistible novel about a sexy-as-sin biker who tempts a good girl to go bad, Possession.
Off the Hook from USA Today bestselling author Laura Drewry is the first in her Fishing for Trouble series featuring three unforgettable brothers—each of whom is a great catch. Then the swoon-worthy McKinney Brothers series from New York Times bestselling author Claudia Connor continues with J.T. in Worth It All. USA Today bestselling author Alexis Morgan kicks off her new Sergeant Joe’s Boys series with Always for You: Jack, where a foster son learns about love and life in record time. And the new Fireside series tells a story of an old love reunited in His to Love from new Loveswept author, Stacey Lynn. USA Today bestselling writing duo M. J. Fields and Chelsea Camaron are back with the Caldwell brothers in Jagger, which is not only full of swagger and sensuality but also packs an emotional punch as the last bachelor standing fights for a woman who’s worth every ounce of trouble. And yet another Aces Hockey romance from Kelly Jamieson releases this month featuring pro hockey hunk Duncan in Icing. There’s also something naughty for you from New York Times bestselling author Jen McLaughlin in Lust Is the Thorn where a soon-to-be ordained priest has to decide who he loves more. Then prepare yourself for razor-sharp suspense from New York Times bestselling author Patricia Rosemoor with His Deception. Two words for you: secret bodyguard. And for fans of the hit TV show Empire, Lisa Marie Perry’s Sin for Me kicks off the sizzling Devil’s Music series.
Friend Loveswept and let the romance begin!
Until next month—Happy Romance!
Gina Wachtel
Associate Publisher
Read on for an excerpt from
Never Better
A Dark Obsession Novel
by Charlotte Stein
Available soon from Loveswept
She woke to the sound of heavy boots on hardwood.
Though it was something else that really set her heart racing: the faint shush beneath each step, as if the people wearing the boots were trying hard to be very quiet. If it had not been for that, she would have guessed it was workmen, come to retrieve something they’d forgotten from earlier. The Hendersons were having a new kitchen put in, and it seemed likely that they had given the men a key. But it got less likely, the more she saw and heard. If they had turned on the lights, it would have glimmered beneath the door. Yet that line of space was black as ink. One of them cursed as he ran into something; a millisecond later glass broke.
They were intruders, these men.
Thieves, possibly.
A threat, certainly—and not only to her. There was also the sleeping girl nestled deep into the curl of her right arm, one small hand still on the book Lydia had chosen to read to her. Greedy for more, she had thought, when the kid first fell asleep. Now it just seemed terrifyingly vulnerable. She could so easily be hurt.
Unless Lydia could think up some sort of escape plan. It was too late to go down the stairs—they seemed to be everywhere all at once in the rooms below. Alone, she might have been fast enough to evade them. But carrying a sleeping child? She had no chance. They would be on her before she got the front door unlocked, and god only knew what would happen then.
She didn’t think thieves took kindly to people they stumbled across, during midnight break-ins. Hadn’t someone been stabbed not long after disturbing an intruder? Someone over in Stanningly Park, maybe? She only vaguely remembered reading something in the college paper, but only vaguely was more than enough.
If they stabbed Ellie she would lose her goddamn mind. She could already feel it starting to fracture, before anything had actually happened. All her thoughts were fluttering high up in her head, threatening at any second to fly out of
her entirely. Her teeth were chattering; her heart was a tight, tense animal in her chest.
And she was shaking. She tried to hide it, as she gently woke the kid. But it showed in her whispered entreaty for quiet. It was there when she brought her finger to her lips. Her only comfort was that Ellie seemed too sleepy to notice. She rubbed her eyes and complied in that way two-year-olds always did, when woken way before they wanted to be.
It took almost no effort to scoop her up and get her over to the window, and even less to get the window open. The frame was new, and it slid soundlessly up despite the single hand she used to do it.
The next part was the difficult one. How were you supposed to explain to a two-year-old that she had to climb outside then wait? The possibility of her running right off the edge of the roof seemed insanely high to Lydia, in that moment. It almost made her climb out first, but of course doing so would leave Ellie alone with them.
She couldn’t do that. She couldn’t, not even for a second. Ellie had to go first, no matter what the risk—and for a moment it was high indeed. The kid just wouldn’t fit through. She seemed to be all arms and legs, each of which caught on the frame or the window at some point or another. It was like wrestling with a tiny, half asleep octopus, while some unknowable doomsday clock ticked away in the background.
How long had it been since she got out of the bed, now?
Thirty seconds? Sixty?
It felt like a thousand. Every sound was their footsteps on the stairs, and yet still Ellie would not go through. Lydia sweated and tried not to curse and struggled until desperate tears tried to leak from her eyes, but couldn’t get the task done. And then finally, finally, she got the kid out, only to lose her grip on those footie pajamas.
“No,” she said, so loud and agonized it did actually stop Ellie from crawling away.
But the cost of that was steep indeed. The silence that followed rang in her ears. It filled the whole house, as telling as an intake of breath before the bullet hits. They had heard her, quite obviously. Now she had seconds instead of minutes, when what she needed was hours.
Climbing through the window would have been difficult without the time limit. With it, she was too frantic and too clumsy. She snagged the sweatpants she was wearing and twisted her ankle trying to put one foot through first, scraping various bare parts of herself as she jammed and forced.
Yet none of it was enough. If anything, her efforts only put her at a greater disadvantage. When they came through the door, she was panting and bloody and bruised, frustrated tears standing out in her eyes. Most of the fight was already gone out of her, and that sensation only got stronger as she took them in.
They were both tall, very tall, and broad. And clearly they were experts, rather than opportunists. Their clothes were practically uniforms, from their thick canvas jackets to their utilitarian boots. Even their masks were identical—thin black material that turned every part of their faces into a featureless lump.
And that included their eyes.
For some ungodly reason, they had no holes cut to see out of. There was just a dark blank space where those holes should be, as though two sightless aliens had come here just to silently observe. They wanted to know what panic looked like.
But she was damned if she was going to show it to them.
Instead she composed herself, before shutting the window behind her. None of this was a big deal. Everything was absolutely fine. She was just a woman on her own who had heard a noise and tried to escape, but understood now that she had to comply with their requests. That was all there was to this, she told herself, in the hopes that it would show on her face.
She hoped a lot of things in that calm before the storm—that Ellie would be okay out on the roof until help came, that they would not think too deeply about an adult woman being in a bubblegum room full of toys and tiny furniture, that they would just threaten her, or maybe knock her unconscious.
But sadly, only two of her hopes were heard.
The taller one lunged before she’d even finished the last thought.
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