Page 18 of Felix and the Spy
“In Aquarine?” She snorted. “You don’t know anybody there.”
“That’s what I told him, but he thinks living with him will make me feel better. He’s my only blood relative, after all.”
“Will it?” she asked. “I know you raised him alone. Are you close to your son?”
“No,” Felix admitted. “He is a wonderful boy and everything I could’ve hoped for, but we have nothing in common. I fear he’s doing this out of a misguided sense of duty. You see, he promised his mother that he’d take care of me after she was gone.” Felix stood up. Amara remained where she was, observing him walking across the room to deposit the letter in his bag next to the door. “I must be boring you with my problems. You don’t have children, do you?”
“No, and I don’t want to either.”
“Ah. Smart choice.” He moved closer, towering over her. When he spoke, his eyes were on hers,. A spark flicked low in her belly. Nearness to him did that to her. “People say children are one’s greatest pride and joy, but it’s not easy to be a parent. I know Max is trying to be responsible, but I have my own life. I want to let him down gently, but it’s not easy saying no to your children.”
“What do you want to be doing instead?” It emerged a breathy whisper. “If you don’t retire and move to Aquarine, is there something else you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” Felix said, hands falling to his side. “That is why I feel anxious about his visit. What am I supposed to tell him? Leave me alone to suffer?”
“Is that what you want to say?”
“Yes. As strange as it sounds, suffering is rather comfortable,” he admitted. “I feel like all the promise in my life is gone. The possibilities that shimmered before my eyes when I was younger have turned out to be dead ends, and there are no new ones. Life repeats in this stale, circular rhythm. Nothing ever changes. I don’t know what I’m more afraid of — the fact that things will never change, or that they must someday. Because if I lose this familiarity, what meaning does my life have? What did I spend all these years striving for? I want my pain to mean something.”
His words seeped into her skin. She felt his pain, his agony, his frustration. It was so much like hers. “I feel that way too sometimes,” she admitted. “Frustrated and angry. Like nobody acknowledges what I went through. They pity you, they console you, they try to tell you what to do, but they never really bother to understand.”
“They want you to get over grief while pretending it never existed. Like you can go back to being happy at the snap of your fingers. But I can’t do that. This pain has transformed me into a different person. I’m not sure I can go back to being who I used to be. I might not see it yet, but maybe I’m a better person now than I was, even if most of it is hidden under the shadow of sorrow.”
That was exactly how she felt. Invisible. Uncared for. Misunderstood. Like something broken that needed to be fixed. Emotions roiled inside her heart, clamoring to the surface. She thought she’d buried them, but being with Felix had let them all out.
“Perhaps you’re right. I’m making myself unhappy by expecting to go back to who I used to be. Before my mother died, I never felt so alienated. I existed on the shallow, superficial level that everyone else did. My life had no struggles hence no sorrow, and no fulfillment.”
“But now, you know better.” He shook his head. “We both do.”
She nodded. “I can no longer live on the surface or pretend like everything is all right. It is frustrating, but it is the truth. Sometimes, I want to yell at myself to snap out of it. I want to return to the unbroken person I used to be, back to when I didn’t feel everything so deeply.”
“What do you do when you feel like that?” He stood an inch from her, hot breaths mingling into her skin. His smoldering silver gaze was fixed on her. He looked so beautiful so ethereal in the candlelight—like a specter made of silver and white.
“I try to escape,” she admitted.
“How?” His voice was a low, breathy whisper. He was listening to her, hanging onto her like she was his anchor, his salvation, his answer.
Awareness licked her skin like fire. Her nipples were hard with arousal. Just one more inch and she’d crash against his hard body. Just one breath and she’d shatter.
“Sex.” The word echoed in the room. It was her escape. Her way to forget the pain. And she needed it now.
“Does it work?” A scratchy voice echoed in her ears. His gaze moved to her lips, full and parted in invitation.
“It does. Do you want to try it?”
She didn’t know who leaned in first but the spark in her stomach turned to a conflagration the moment their mouths met. He kissed her hard, drowning his doubts in her skin. A possessive arm wound around her waist. Her breasts flattened against his hard chest as he pulled her up against him and their mouths crashed together. She kissed ardently, escaping the pain that was part of her bones, her blood, her very being. There was never a moment when she didn’t feel it—the futility of her existence. But under his lips, she breathed.
She pushed him against the wall and drank him in like she was a wanderer in an arid desert and he the only drop of water. A torrent of lust raged through her body. She bit his lower lip and tasted the tang of iron. He moaned into her mouth. It was the sexiest sound she’d ever heard.
Amara wanted to ask him if it was too much, but she couldn’t break the kiss. His hands smoothed down her waist, feeling the swell of her hips. She slipped her fingers under the hem of his shirt, pulling it out of his trousers. Her palm pressed against the heated skin of his stomach, making him grunt.
It was wrong. They had crossed so many lines. She should stop. Retreat. But when Felix deepened the kiss, forcing her to open her mouth, she lost the battle in her head. His wet, hot tongue slid in. Amara’s fingers moved higher, brushing his nipple. Felix made a strangled noise. But he didn’t let her go. Instead, he cupped her ass, settling her against the bulge in his trousers. Silently, he confirmed her doubts: He wanted her; needed her as much as she needed him. She pushed her heat against his hardness as their teeth clashed in a passionate kiss.
With his kiss, Felix drew the soul out of her. He kissed her like the demon he was—like he wanted to break her, to devour her, to own her. The wild, untamed part of him surfaced. And she loved it. It made her dizzy with pleasure. She hadn’t known he was capable of such passion; like he was a powder keg, and she was the match that set him ablaze.
When their mouths pulled apart, she was panting. Her knees were weak with need.
They looked into each other’s eyes, glimpsing the carnal craving in them.
