Descent (Black Heart Romance presents Heaven & Hell)

want to know the reason.
My pleasure grows as I watch her surrender unfold. Her whole body tenses when she realizes
what I already knew when I grabbed her—she has to let me finish.
She swallows, her body ramrod straight as I draw her lovely fingers close and bow my head
over them. I inhale the floral scent of her skin and close my eyes as I press my lips against her left
ring finger instead of her knuckles.
The place where a ring would be if she had a husband.
Feels right to kiss her there.
The roots of possessiveness grow a little longer as I hold her hand in mine. It’s too fleeting,
though. Just as she knew she’d have to let me kiss her hand to keep up appearances, I know I’ll have
to let go of her for the same reason.
Not that keeping up appearances is remotely important to me, but it clearly is to her. She’s
enduring this for the sake of it, so I suppose I can’t let all her effort be in vain.
“You look lovely today,” I tell her as I drop her hand.
She snatches her hand back and absently rubs the skin I kissed. Despite her best intentions to
play it cool, I can see she’s struggling.
She doesn’t thank me. That’s a lapse. If she wanted to be herself, she would thank me for the
compliment.
It’s a small one, though. Easy enough to recover from.
I expect her to recover. I really do.
But she doesn’t.
Maybe she can’t.
The panic wins out over her best intentions and she flees without a single explanation.