“Don’t look at me. I didn’t pick it.”
Demitri laid back, pulling me with him by my waist. He was an affectionate man. Always had been. The smells of each other blended along the bed, lavender and burnt cinnamon creating an aroma I could be lulled to sleep by.
A strong hand flattened across my bare stomach, thumb caressing the skin below my navel smoothly. “So now that you’re free, what are your plans for tomorrow?”
Tomorrow. A day alone in Las Vegas.
There were a million ways to die waiting for me in this town. I just had to stumble upon one.
“Eh, I’ll probably go to the old section of Vegas. See what kind of trouble I can get into there.”
“Or you could come with me?” My head jerked towards him in surprise. Persuasion backlit his awaiting stare. “Let me take you out for a day or even the weekend? We could get into some fun trouble of our own.”
I let an acceptable puff of laughter go free. “You know I’m more of a lone troublemaker.”
The casual air I tried to float back into our conversation was sucked away by that very same look Demitri gave me downstairs. The one I didn’t want to know. The one that begged as loudly as a dying man’s scream.
“You don’t have to be alone though.”
The surviving portion of my heart shriveled up at his pleading tone, and a fresh wave of guilt poured through.
Dammit.
I couldn’t even lie to myself and assume his reason for trying to get me to stay with him was selfish, fueled by his feelings for me. I couldn’t fool myself, and I couldn’t even be mad at him for his attempt. I couldn’t be anything but sorry for the desperation brimming beneath his cool complexion that gave him away.
He didn’t want me to stay for him.
He wanted me to stay so he could keep me safe. Alive.
I’d never come right out and told him I wanted to die, and he’d never come right out and asked me if I did. But he knew me, and he knew my pain.
So it stood to reason he’d figured that about me too.
Staring across the bed at Demitri, a tingling began in the sides of my hands, and I sucked back a dreading breath.
That’s always where it started.
The fire twisted through my veins, constricting through my fingers to the point that they’d begin to shake. Then it weeded its way up my arms until it could sprout inside my chest and around my bones and then everywhere else, filling every inch of me with its aching presence.
I held my breath as the fire took over, the cooling rain Demitri brought with him drying up to a drought.
This always happened at some point in our time together—the fire’s return—but this time hurt worse than normal. There was someone who wanted me alive and he was laying right next to me, pleading his case with despair sewn through his eyes.
I wanted to want it to be enough. To be wanted. To be missed. To know there was someone who cared if I died and would hurt if I was gone. His hurt mattered, but both of us knew it didn’t matter enough to keep me here.
No one person was worth living for.
“You know, I actually need to go back up to that agent’s room for a second. I left my phone charger there.”
Demitri’s face fell before I could look away. “What?”
I scooted off of the bed, yanking on my clothes as fast as I could. “Yeah. I’ll just run up real quick and get it.”
“And are you planning on coming back?” The upset in his voice rattled my nerves, but I kept moving because I hated lying.
“Yeah, I might stay down in the casino for a bit though so don’t wait up.”
Jitters were working my muscles faster and pumping my blood harder than it needed to go. I was right in the middle of shoving my flip flops on when his voice stopped me.