Part 24:

He hadn’t felt this young in years. Then he went after her. Her feet found the sand first. She dragged herself up onto it and dropped down onto her back, chest heaving, the gap in the rock above, letting the sun pour straight through it like a window onto the sky. OS came down beside her a moment later. I won. She threw it at the sky, breathless from the swim.

He turned his head to look at her. If you say so. She laughed up at the sky, and it surprised her how easy it came. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this light, this far from everything heavy in her life. The sun was warm on her wet skin. OS was close enough to feel, and for once she wasn’t guarding a single thing.

The words just spilled out of her, happy and unthinking. I really can’t believe I never knew this was here. Whenever I came to Malta in the summers, my father always used to She stopped. The name was out before she could catch it. She shut her eyes. One careless second, drunk on the day, and the water and the man beside her, all that excitement and happiness, and the pull of him, and she’d let her own mouth ruin everything.

Then she felt his fingers move into her wet hair. She opened her eyes. OS had propped himself on one elbow, his face right above hers, brushing the wet strands off her cheek. Isabella’s lips parted. She was giving everything away now, and she couldn’t stop it. She pulled in a slow breath. His look had gone serious, but she already knew.

She’d known from the way he was watching her. His thumb traced across her lower lip. The question slipped out of Isabella before she’d decided to ask it, barely a whisper. How long? The faintest smile touched his mouth. The tunnel made me wonder. His thumb moved again. Then I found the photograph in the drawer. The room off the tunnel.

You and your mother on your first birthday. That made me sure. Isabella smiled and it hurt to do it. And you said nothing. You weren’t ready to stop being Anita. His fingers traced the edge of her smile. But if you’re asking how long I’ve wanted you. His eyes didn’t leave hers. Since the cliff. Since the first second I pulled you back from that edge.

You were falling and you still looked ready to fight me. I should have known right then you’d be trouble. Why? It was barely a sound. He kept stroking her cheek slow. That fire in you that won’t quit. The way you turn cold and clever. The second things get hard. How hard you fight. And a kind of beauty that ought to be illegal. Something moved across his face.

There and gone. You beat me, Isabella Ki. Came at me from a side I never saw. I came here for revenge. Instead, I found you. She lifted her hand and laid her fingers against his cheek. He turned his head and pressed his mouth to her palm. For days she’d held her own reign so tight, and now she felt them slip, every one of them.

She wasn’t going to be able to fight this. Her body knew it before her mind could build a case against it. The heat had started low and was spreading belly to hips, and her heart was slamming, and every place near him seemed to wake before the rest of her could catch up. Os leaned down and set a kiss at the corner of her mouth. The sound that left her, she had no time to hide.

He stayed there a second, his lips barely off hers, giving her the room to turn away. She didn’t. She turned into him. That was when his control broke. His mouth moved over her cheek first, then along her jaw, slow enough to make her breath catch. When his lips finally brushed hers once, then again, she parted for him, and his mouth closed over hers, warm and deep.

He kissed her slow and heavy and all the way present, and she gave it back with everything she had. His mouth moved to her ear, her throat, and she pulled him down against her, breathing him in, wanting to lose herself in his hands like she’d been waiting her whole life for exactly this. I should stop, she thought.

She should stop, but she couldn’t. She wanted him. All of him. She wanted to belong to him. Was this only some reckless pull? Or had something in her known him from the first moment? She stopped trying to decide. Her body had already answered for her. Os pushed up to sitting and pulled her with him into his lap. They were both breathing hard.

I want all of you, Isabella. The words came low against her mouth. Tell me to stop and I’ll stop. She kissed him instead again and again. The next words came rougher like they cost him. I’ve never wanted anyone like this. her legs wrapped around his waist and she arched into him, breathing the words against his lips. Don’t Don’t stop.

He took her face in both hands and held it, tilted it up to his. Look me in the eyes when you say it, Isabella. Her breath was ragged. I want you, OS. He went still. For a long moment, his eyes stayed on her, his whole body holding close enough that the air between them felt charged. Not just this. His voice had dropped to something rough and certain, not some passing thing.

I want you in my life, Isabella. Do you understand me? His thumb brushed her lower lip. You know you’re going to be my wife soon, don’t you? The words should have made her pull back. Instead, they moved through her like heat, and her legs tightened around him before her pride could answer. She couldn’t have found words if she’d tried.

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