Page 19 of Samhain
I grinned, noticing how Carter’s eyes shimmered in the dying summer sunset. He truly was beautiful, but not in the same jagged way that made Lex appealing or in soft, lively curves like Ivy. Carter had a boy-next-door-hit-puberty-like-a-lumberjack thing about him. He’d grown into someone who would tie you up and throat-fuck you while coddling you and whispering sweet nothings to make you feel precious.
“Why are you looking at me like that, Juliet?” He stabbed his cigarette out in the ashtray between us.
“Just regarding you,” I said. “Can’t I appreciate a pretty sight?”
He cleared his throat and stared down at me from under hooded lids. A few quiet moments passed between us until he finally stepped closer and murmured, “You ever think about that night in Ireland…that night Lex went to get Ivy from the library.”
I licked my lips and smiled as memories flicked through my mind. “You mean the night you made me ride you while reciting Shakespeare?”
He laughed and the muscles in his throat constricted. My tongue suddenly ached to trace over them. I blinked back the urge, unsure of where exactly that was coming from.
“That one. Yes,” he said.
“What about it?” I stabbed out my cigarette and immediately lit up another one.
Carter took another step closer and pushed my brown hair back behind my ear, cupping my cheek. The scars from our vow brushed against my jaw, and the sensuous touch sizzled all the way down my spine to my toes and back up again.
I chalked it up to a human female response to a gorgeous man being this close, especially since the last time I’d been touched intimately, he’d been involved. Carter and I were friends. That was it. That was all. We were married to the same people, which made us metamours at best, and romantic rivals at worst. Sure, we’d slept together, but only as it related to whatever had happened to all of us. Never on our own. Never like this.
“I miss them,” he said. “And some part of me always will, but I’m happy you’re here, Juliet.” He kissed my temple. “We’re a team. All we have is us.”
“I’m happy I’m here, too,” I said, pulling back enough to look up at him. Carter’s blue eyes were mere inches away, his lips so close I could taste the whiskey on his breath. He smelled enticing, like deodorant and cologne and man. I shouldn’t want him. I knew I shouldn’t. Despite what we’d all agreed, Ivy wouldn’t like it and neither would Lex. But I yearned for him with a sick desperation. It seemed like he wanted me, too.
I pushed up on my toes to close the distance between us, but someone called to him from inside the house.
“Hey, Carter. Come check this out!”
“Yeah,” Carter said. “Be right there.” He looked down at me and kissed the tip of my nose. “Hold that thought, okay?”
I nodded and smiled while he disappeared inside.
After we’d drank and schmoozed our way into oblivion, my driver took us back to the house and I quickly disappeared to my bedroom. Carter likely expected to continue whatever had started between us on the balcony, but I was too confused for that.
Did I enjoy Carter’s company because I liked him? Or was this about Lex and Ivy? Would it always be about them? Tears threatened to spill down my cheeks and, though I tried to blink them back, they overwhelmed me once I closed my bedroom door.
Carter wasn’t Lex, and I wasn’t Ivy, and who were we to each other if not a link to them? Did I want Carter because I wanted Carter? Or did I want him because both Lex and Ivy did?
I needed to move on with my life—just get over this bloody nonsense already. But how could I?
What do I want?
Not this. Not crying myself to sleep every night because the chasm between my body and where I left half my heart was literally the size of America.
The door handle to my room jiggled, and he opened the damn thing like the lock was more of a suggestion than a barrier, like we had zero boundaries between us. Maybe we didn’t. Not anymore.
“I beg your pardon.” I balked.
“Can we not do this tonight?” He stalked into the room and gestured between us like I was supposed to know what that meant.
“Do what?” Shocked didn’t begin to describe my outrage.
“That thing where we act like we don’t know one another, like we don’t have the same heart shattering in our chests.”
I pretended like I had no clue what he was talking about. “Don’t be preposterous.”
He paused and sighed before he murmured, “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
All the fight melted out of me. This poor thing. “There’s nothing preventing you from finding a lover, Carter.”
