Rathe lifted a hand and ran the back of his fingers along my jaw, so very slowly, while he studied my lips. I stopped breathing completely. His eyes were that strange steel blue color again when he met my gaze. “Catalina, he had no choice but to fall in love with you. Your outward beauty attracts men, but when someone gets close to you, they get to see what’s inside. They get to hear your smart mouth,” he said with a smirk. “When people see how selfless and kind you are, how deeply you care for those you love. It’s impossible not to fall in love with you. There’s something incredibly unique and rare about you.”

There was something unique about me alright, but not the qualities he’d just used to describe me. He didn’t know I was a liar, he didn’t know I had a cursed soul, he didn’t know there was a darkness coursing through my veins that I had to fight back every single day. He didn’t know loving me would be his worst mistake.

“You can’t love me,” I said the words needing them to be true. As much as my heart wanted to hear him say he loved me, he couldn’t. Shouldn’t.

Rathe cupped my face with both of his hands and tilted it back so that I was staring directly up at him. I had to tell myself to breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. “I may not love you...yet, but I could. So easily.”

Oh. Hell.

I closed my eyes unable to keep looking into that deep steel gaze of his and remain standing. “Breathe, Catalina,” he whispered, as his lips softly brushed my cheek then my closed eyelid.

I obeyed and inhaled deeply.

“I came here for other reasons, but you changed it all.”

Here, as in this apartment, or here, as in Savannah? His mouth continued to trail kisses over my face and his scent was making me drunk. All the yearning I’d fought so hard to control broke free of any hold I had remotely had on it. There was no power strong enough to keep me from what he was offering. The greedy hunger to hold on to him as tightly as I could, terrified me; yet, I knew that terror wasn’t enough to stop me.

His lips brushed mine, and I opened my lips demanding more. The aggressivness of my kiss flipped a switch. Rathe’s sweet embrace of my face ended and his hands went to my waist gripping me tightly. With a hard tug, he pulled me up against him, causing me to gasp with the slamming of our bodies. I reached up and buried my hands in his hair that I always longed to touch. Tangling my fingers in his perfect locks, I savored the freedom to do as I wanted.