‘As opposed to?’
‘Being King is so much a part of you. I guess I still find it hard to understand why you didn’t tell me who you are. What you are. Three years ago. In New York,’ she added, as if he didn’t know exactly what she meant.
‘It was a novelty to meet someone who didn’t know,’ he said truthfully. ‘And I discovered I liked being treated like any other man.’
‘Not like any other man,’ she said, so softly the words were almost carried away towards the open window, then her ocean-green eyes latched onto his. Something pulled inside him. ‘You weren’t like any man I’d ever, ever met.’
He dismissed the words, refusing to let them matter to him.
‘I mean it,’ she said softly, her words reaching deep into his chest. ‘You were so overwhelming.’
Her eyes held his, studying him in that way she had, as though she were pulling him apart piece by piece, and weighing every fragment of him in her hands. ‘That’s lust,’ he dismissed. ‘Desire.’ And to prove his point he caught her hand and brought it to his lips, pressing a light kiss to her racing pulse point there. His eyes held hers as he moved his mouth to her palm and laid a kiss there, then to her thumb, which he nipped with his teeth. Her eyes fluttered shut and he felt her pulse kick up another notch beneath his fingertips.
‘It was more than that,’ she said throatily.
Frustration sliced through him. ‘Desire is a powerful drug. Especially for someone who has no experience.’
‘I’d met men I liked before,’ she contradicted, dropping her gaze to the bed. He didn’t want her to hide herself from him. It frustrated him. ‘It wasn’t like I hadn’t ever been tempted by a guy. Or fantasised about what it might be like...’
Jealousy again. It was as unwelcome now as it had been earlier.
‘But with you it was so different. It was as though everything I am was bound up in being with you. I felt like I needed you in the same way I need breath and water.’
‘That is what it should be like,’ he murmured, for it had been exactly like this for him, with Frankie.
‘Like what should be like?’
‘When you go to bed with someone, it should be because you want them with an intensity that almost fells you at the knees.’ He regarded her with all the need he felt in that moment—and it was more than strong enough to cut his body in two.
Her cheeks flushed pink. ‘So you...feel that...have felt that before? Before me?’ She cleared her throat. ‘With other women?’
So much was riding on that question—her hopes were so raw they hurt him. And so he lied, because it was the kindest thing for her. He lied because if he told her that he’d never felt desire like he’d known that night, like he’d known with Frankie, she would see something more in that—she would see a promise he would never give. ‘Yes.’ His eyes dropped to her lips and he thought about kissing her, he thought about showing her that nothing mattered more than their desire for one another. But she’d made her feelings clear and he had to respect them, even when it was practically killing him. ‘That’s what good sex is about.’
* * *
It was a dream he’d had hundreds of times. He was back in the car, the smell of burning hair and flesh, of smoke and smouldering metal all around him. Adrenalin raced through his veins as the limousine filled with flames. He was trapped. He knew this feeling well. He pushed at his belt; it didn’t move.
His eyes were scratchy—the smoke, he knew now. His parents were dead, in the front of the car. His chest heaved as he looked towards them, saw his mother’s beautiful face frozen still, horror on her features, almost as though she’d fallen asleep in the midst of a nightmare.
He turned to Spiro, bracing himself, wishing he could wake up, wishing he could reach back through time, into this dream, into the reality that had spawned it, and do something. But there was nothing—he was forced to relive this event again and again, the moment in which he had become truly alone.
Only Spiro wasn’t there! Beside him, their faces bloodied, were Frankie and Leo.
He tasted vomit in his mouth and he stretched the belt, but it wouldn’t move. His broken arm was an encumbrance he had no time for. With a curse, he called her name, but she didn’t move. Leo was still, like a mannequin, so tiny, so frail.
He reached out and his fingertips curled around her fine blonde hair, clumped with blood, and blood filled his nostrils and eyes, vomit rushed through him. ‘Frankie!’ He called her name, urgently now, desperately, pushing at the seat belt again.
Nothing.
He was weak—powerless to help her.
Desperation tore him apart. ‘Frankie!’
She lifted her head and looked at him, only her eyes were not green now, they were dark like Spiro’s had been, like Leo’s were. ‘You can’t save us,’ she murmured, rejection in her features. ‘Just let us go. Let me go.’
He woke then, his forehead beaded in perspiration, his skin white. He turned towards Frankie on autopilot and almost cried out at the sight of her, fast asleep. But the dream was too real, the memory of it fractured and splintering into this time and life. ‘Frankie.’ He reached over and shook her arm.
She made a small noise then blinked her eyes open, looking at him.