The Stranger I Know (Dark Romance) (18 page)

He's gentle. Delicate even, when he raises his hands to embrace my shoulders. His eyes waver up and down, and my heart only follows. It sinks down into my stomach and rises to my throat, every time he looks at my lips. I want to swallow him whole. I want him to swallow me.

"I'm the one who fucked up. I broke the one rule we agreed on. Everything else was a mistake, but that was the one thing that I really fucked up on," he says.

"It was already broken before I even came to the hotel that night. I already knew who you were. I saw my underwear peeking from your drawer. The one I had mailed to... you, I suppose."

He rubs my arms and I want him to come closer, but I'm too stubborn and frozen to close the gap myself. He looks over my head, thinking. He speaks, his voice reverberating through me.

"I was awfully surprised when I got that package. I thought you were on to me."

"I wasn't."

We're silent for a moment. He finally comes a little closer, and his arms wrap around me. I fall into his chest and melt just like ice against a chimney. He got what he wanted, my entire body on top of him. He nuzzles my forehead with his stubble. I run my fingers across his chest, feeling his chest hair. "We're pretty fucked up. Aren't we?"

He doesn't answer, and that's okay. He doesn't have to. I know the answer. But right now, he has his arms around me — and for the first time — I'm glad to know who the Stranger really is.

"Marcy, I..." he begins, resuming a thought he cut off earlier.

He pulls me off him and stares into my eyes. "The pain got worse. The more I realized... I was falling in love with you."

He kisses my forehead and brushes my hair aside.

"Sir," I whisper, still clutching his shirt. He nuzzles me again.

"Yes?" A name he called me a long time ago. Before he knew who I was. Before I did.

"I've loved you. I didn't want to admit it, because I just couldn't tell..."

"If it was love or hate? Frustration or admiration?"

I nod. "Can we start over?"

"No."

I freeze up, my hand still resting on his chest, my balance still depending on his embrace.

"We can't erase what happened," he says. "But... we can overwrite it."

That's what I wanted to hear. I stay silent.

He lowers his voice a little, being gentle again. "I wasn't kidding about offering you a job. We do have positions at my office. My real office. Better pay too, I'm sure. Less... sexual harassment."

"
Unwanted
sexual harassment," I correct him. "Considering I'm currently only employed because of blackmail, I'll probably need a job."

"It'll be yours."

I hug him, and only barely stop my eyes from welling over. His skin smells like the Stranger's. That clean, masculine scent I've grown to appreciate. The same smell that makes me yearn. His arms swallow me. When I withdraw, his lips greet mine and lock on. My eyes flutter shut and I pull everything I can from the kiss. Everything I can from the moment. But I give it all up, too. All the pretense. The anger. The madness. I push it all back into his mouth.

And he does the same. And we repeat.

Right now, that's what I want. That's what I need.

Someone who can endure even our particular madness.

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SBN-13:

978-1507650448

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SBN-10:

1507650442

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Did you love
The Stranger I Know
? Then you should read
Dark Exposure
by Amy Isan!

My name is Giovanni. The women I capture call me monstrous, demonic, and evil.

But I’m an artist. Over the years, I've perfected my technique to uncover that spark of life in my subjects.

The women I take need control. They all start as coal, unrefined and untainted. They need to be polished and carved into the diamonds they deserve to be. Sometimes they are too weak to withstand the pressure and heat, and turn out too flawed to even be worth gazing at.

Lily isn't going to be any different than the others. She doesn't stand a chance.

Read more at
Amy Isan’s site
.