Frantic beats that echoed against the other.
A smirk ticked at the corner of his sexy mouth, then it slipped when he glanced at me then to the canvas. He began to paint. Quick, sweeping strokes, as if the images fell from him without thought. “I felt your fear, Salem. I felt your desperation. Wonder if I felt it then, that we were bound to be more than strangers. Wonder if I knew you were supposed to be on the back of my bike that night. Wonder if I knew you were going to become something that mattered in my life.”
I struggled to remain still, to swallow, to breathe. But the walls spun and gathered. Jud didn’t move, but it felt as if the walls had enclosed and pushed us closer.
He kept sweeping his brush over the canvas in long, frenzied strokes.
“I’m so tired of being afraid.” The confession slipped free. “I’m so tired of running.”
Those walls shook around me. A warning they might crumble and fall.
I had to remember. Remember to be careful.
Trust no one.
But it was getting harder and harder to do.
Beneath his beard, his jaw clenched. “I want to erase that for you, Salem. Gather up every scar you have and paint it something new.”
“Some of the scars cannot be healed, Jud.”
It was an admission from my soul. Where the sorrow railed and reigned.
He blinked, caught in his own storm. “And I want to hold that, too. Don’t deserve it, but I want it.”
“How do you not deserve it?”
And I guessed that’s why I’d followed him here after I’d been so angry with him. So disappointed. The truth I’d seen in the well of his eyes—it was grief that had sent him running.
A hard scoff climbed his thick throat. Disgust rolled out with the sound. “Don’t you see it yet?”
“I see a man who’s in pain and doesn’t let anyone around him know.”
“Only you.”
“Me.” I couldn’t tell if I was claiming it or if it was a question.
Desire lapped.
I could taste it.
Sweet in the air.
I inhaled it into my lungs, felt it rush my veins and fill my belly.
From where I was perched on my knees, my hips involuntarily bucked, begging for him.
I shouldn’t.
But there was a brand-new need burning inside me.
It was only going to hurt.
But my hand was pressing lower on my abdomen, thoughts hitting me so fast, the memory of that kiss, those hands, how good it would feel to just give in.
A growl reverberated the air.
Those black eyes flashed.
Pitch.
Darkened with lust.
His tongue swept across his lips.
“Salem.” It was a warning.
“You asked me when I felt the most beautiful. You wanted me to show you how I feel when you look at me. This, Jud. I feel this. I feel desired. I feel wanted. I feel real.”
No longer mist.
My trembling fingertips barely slipped under the band of my underwear, and the plea rasped from my mouth. “I want you to want me. The way I want you.”
There I went, begging for the pain.
But I couldn’t stop.
Not when he was watching me that way.
“Enchantress. What do you think you’re doin’ to me?”
A soft sound of rebuttal stole from between my lips. “It’s me who’s intoxicated, Jud. Me who doesn’t know what hit her.”
The brush slipped from his fingers and clinked against the floor.
Slowly, Jud edged my direction.
A dark tower.
A ferocious warrior.
A wicked savior.
I wanted him to be.
To stand for me.
For us.
But I could never ask that of him.
He came forward on those bare feet until he was reaching out and tipping my chin up with the crook of his index finger. “Darlin’, I’m no good. Don’t you see?”
Shadows played over his hard, rugged face.
“I do see, Jud. I see a man who is kind and good and gentle and fierce. I see a man who’s haunted. Haunted like me.”
The pad of his thumb traced my lips.
My stomach tightened and my hips bucked again.
He was close enough that I could make out some of the shapes on his torso. They were so much like the images painted on the walls.
Demons and angels. War and life. Grief and destruction. Toiling seas and crumbling mountains.
But there were four bold letters stamped on his left side that I had the urge to touch.
GRIM.
My spirit trembled, as wildly as my fingers when I gave in and reached out to trace the word.
The proclamation.
I closed my eyes as if I were reading it in Braille, and the man shook beneath my touch.
Shame lanced through his being.
“Who I really am, Salem.”
My brow pinched. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’ve done horrible things.”
Everything shivered.
My heart and my soul and the night.
This was bad. It was clear in the confession of his eyes that it was bad.
The ghosts in his eyes weren’t just pretend.
Though, like a fool, I pressed, lifted my gaze to his hard, harsh beauty. “But it’s in the past?”