Last Kiss Read Online Free Page A

description matched her to a T. Including the tattoo on her shoulder.” I shuddered remembering how well the report had depicted Amber. I hadn’t wanted to believe it was her. I’d fought it as hard as I could. Until I couldn’t anymore, and I had to accept it. “I mourned her, Reeve.”
    Tenderness flickered across his stone features and then disappeared. “If you had bothered to talk to me about it, I could have saved you that grief. But you didn’t.”
    I rolled my eyes and bent to scoop up the panties I’d missed. “Like I could talk to you about that.”
    “Right. Because I wasn’t supposed to know that you were her friend.”
    “Yes, that was one of the reasons.”
    “What were the others?” He twisted toward me, throwing his legs off the bed. “Did you think
I
killed her?”
    My lips parted, taken aback by his reaction and by how fast he’d jumped to the correct conclusion.
    When I took too long to respond, he stood and took an aggressive step toward me. “Tell me, Emily, is that what you thought?”
    I shrunk back, holding my clothes to my chest as though they could protect me from him. He started to ask again, and I blurted out, “No. But I thought you might have had someone else kill her.”
    “The whole time? The whole time we’ve been together, that’s what you thought?”
    Yes, it had been what I’d thought. The terrible thing was that it said as much about myself as it did about him. It was humiliating. That I could be the type of person who would stay with a man who might have killed someone I’d loved – it was difficult to admit.
    So I didn’t answer him, and that was an answer in itself.
    The barely controlled fury in his eyes flared and his features turned to stone, but somehow I understood that what he was really feeling in this moment was disappointment.
    I felt that disappointment, too, so vividly, both from him and from myself, and suddenly I understood that I really should have been embarrassed that I’d thought he could have done something that terrible and never talked to him about it. I’d been in a committed relationship with this man for more than two months. I’d let him in, let him consume me, and yet I’d still kept him at a distance, even when I knew he’d tried to let me in.
    Now, for the first time, I cared about what I did to Reeve instead of just caring about what he did to me. I’d hurt him, and that felt shitty.
    “Look.” I sighed, trying to lessen the blow. “I don’t know why you think that’s an impossible conclusion to jump to. You’ve done everything in your power to keep me frightened of the things you were capable of.”
    He laughed, a dark
ha
that held very little humor. “You wanted me like that, Emily. You wanted me to be the man who would frighten you, and don’t you try to say for a moment that you didn’t.”
    “Just because it’s what I wanted doesn’t mean that’s not who you really are.”
    “No. I guess it doesn’t.” His eyes met mine, and again I saw all the emotion he’d shown me downstairs, his pupils like a dark and turbulent storm. He held me in that gaze for several long seconds.
    Then he took another step toward me. “I told you what happened. I told you she left here, alive. You didn’t believe me? I thought you trusted me. You
acted
like you trusted me.”
    It was an opening – a chance for me to fix everything, and I knew it. I’d told him once that, for me, trust equaled love. He’d wanted me to trust him because he’d wanted me to love him. He wanted me to say it now.
    But I
didn’t
trust him. And I
did
love him. I could have told him that, and it might have made a difference.
    Funny how the idea of actually admitting my affection was so much more frightening than believing he was a killer.
    Somehow I managed to keep my eyes on him when I spoke next. “I never said I trusted you.”
    He shook his head in disbelief. “This is not when we have this conversation. Not when we’re tired and stressed.” He