Nervous, I bit my bottom lip, hoping I could bring him in from the edge of the roof. “We need to move, Daniel.”
Blinking, he appeared confused. Too drunk or too far lost in his head, Daniel probably didn’t realize where we stood. “The fuck you want?”
Great.This should go well.
“I heard you yelling,” I admitted. “I got a lot on my mind too. Why don’t we go talk about it?”
“Talk?” he scoffed, lifting the bottle to his lips, and taking a swig, half of the liquor sloshing down the front of his t-shirt, soaking into the white material. Through the translucent slices of cloth, I caught the tanned, sculpted muscles of his abdomen. And beyond that, dark swirls of ink.
“Sure. Let’s talk.”
“No.” His brows crinkled, deepening into a frown as he shook his head. “I don’t want to talk.” A bitter, low-pitched sound close to a laugh erupted from his mouth.
“Just yell then?” I asked, trying to avoid becoming distracted by the intimidating, attractive man in front of me. Fear thrummed through my body as he teetered close to the edge again. “Tell me what you want instead,” I offered as a diversion.
The tactic worked.
Daniel took two steps in my direction. His lips stretched into a disarming grin. “I’d fuck you the way you need, Skyla. The way youshouldbe fucked.” Another step closer. “How you probably dream about getting fucked in your bed with your delicate little hand down your panties, touching yourself until you get off. But you know what?”
I didn’t reply, sucking in a breath as my cheeks heated with embarrassment.
“It won’t ever be enough, and it won’t feel half as good as my cock.”
I couldn’t breathe. Daniel was right. The sexual experiences I had were lacking. In truth, I’d been used often, but nothing more, and definitely in ways that I’d rather forget. When your only knowledge came from forced encounters, you didn’t have a lot in comparison. My thighs clenched as I imagined how it would feel to give into lust, seek my release, and explore the erotic needs of my body. The thought was both terrifying and intriguing at the same time.
“I think we should move now.”
He glanced around, smirking when his gaze perused the roof. Maybe his sobriety would return soon. “You worried?”
“That you might fall or jump to your death? Yes.”
Staring down at me with an expression I couldn’t decipher; his cheeks hollowed as he sucked in an unsteady breath and licked his lips. “I wouldn’t leave Zara like that.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you here? To haunt me as she does?”
I had never heard anyone sound like he did, so full of pain and torment that it felt like a tangible, monstrous grip on my heart, squeezing to the point of bursting.
“I don’t know what you mean by that.”
His hand flared out, cutting through the air like he didn’t believe me. “The past. All the shit I’ve done. It’s come full circle, and now I’ve got to pay the devil his due.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“Yeah, I am—shit!”
My heart leaped into my throat as Daniel slipped, tumbling downward as he managed to fall in the right direction, away from the steep drop below. His big body slammed into mine, crashing us both onto the scratchy shingles, shoving them into my spine as I cried out.
“Fuck! Skyla!”
He managed not to crush me with the landing, holding himself up by his heavily inked and muscled arms planted on either side of my waist. His heated breath, soaked with whiskey, blanketed my face. I could almost taste it.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” I managed to answer, panting to catch my breath. “I’m okay, Daniel.”
His eyes darkened, slightly dilating, swirling with something I couldn’t pinpoint before his gaze shifted to my lips. “Tell me you didn’t follow me to the roof just to haunt me.”