Sweet Temptation (The Sweet Trilogy #4)(37)

“Hey, you,” murmurs a girl in a black dress who’s getting out of a car with her friends. She touches my arm, but I keep walking, slipping right past her. I pinch the bridge of my nose.

Lust is the groveling cousin of love. It’s the house made of straw and sticks. It cannot compare. I was a fool to think chasing lust forever could be enough. That is not a life. I would take one moment of love with Anna over a lifetime of meaningless lust, but I can’t. That’s not my fate, and it hurts worse than anything I could imagine. God, if my father could see me now. He would have my balls for tea.

I walk and walk until I’m craving Anna’s presence so strongly it sends me jogging back to the lot where I left my car. I half expect to be pulled over as I speed back to the hotel, but L.A. cops are too busy to worry with me.

I run up to the room and am blasted with Anna’s scent when I open the door. I practically tremble as I breathe her in. A stab of abdominal pain hits me, but I ignore it as I walk into the room. She’s restless in sleep, and I want to climb into her bed and hold her. I’m a f*cking mess as I sit on my bed, longing like a heartsick boy for the girl on the other side of the room.

I set the alarm for four thirty, but there’s no hope of sleep for me. This could be my last time with Anna, and I just want to experience these hours of being in her presence.

Four thirty is a right bitch. Anna is confused and groggy when the alarm goes off and I tell her we need to get an early start. I don’t have the heart just yet to tell her I’m taking her to the airport. Our grand adventure is over. That bubble has popped, and reality is glaring into my face, as hideous as ever.

Like the good girl she is, Anna gets ready and climbs into my car without complaint. I feel my mood plummeting to wicked depths as we approach the airport.

“Where are we going?” she asks sleepily.

My heart picks up speed with nervousness.

“You’re going home today. Everything’s been arranged. Patti will be waiting for you when your flight arrives in Atlanta.”

“Why?” She sits forward a bit so she can look at me.

“Things have gotten too complicated.”

“Do you mean because of the sword or because of me?” she asks. She doesn’t sound happy, and I’m afraid this will get ugly. Why must I constantly explain the danger we’re in? Why is she unable to grasp these facts?

“It’s you,” I say. It’s everything about you. Everything I’m not. Everything I can’t have. Anger at the injustice of it all rises up to suffocate me.

“Is it so unbearable to be around someone who cares for you?” she asks.

Let’s not beat about the bush.

“I’d say you’re feeling a bit more than ‘care’ for me, Anna. I could see your emotion popping around you like pink bubble gum last night.”

“So what?!” she yells. “I haven’t tried to say it to you. I’m sorry I lost focus for a second and let you see it!”

I grit my teeth and take the airport exit. This entire situation is driving me mad. The sooner she’s away from me, the better. “Don’t be dramatic about this.”

“You don’t call this dramatic? Abandoning me at the airport before daylight?”

Abandoning? As if I’d leave her in an unsafe situation.

“I’ll see that you’re in safe hands before I leave.”

“Don’t bother!” She’s seething, and her angry passion stirs me. But then everything shifts as her chin trembles. “I’ve never even been on a plane before.”

I desperately hope she doesn’t cry. I prefer her anger to her tears.

“You’ll be fine,” I say.

“I want to stay with you.”

Don’t cling, Anna, please don’t cling. Don’t make this harder for me, when all I want to do is cling, as well.

“You can’t,” I say. “Your father was right. You should get home as soon as possible. I don’t trust myself with you.”

“Don’t trust yourself? Or don’t trust me?”

I’d thought about this all night. I’d imagined dozens of scenarios where we’d run away together. I imagined what it would’ve been like if I’d ignored that intuition and kept going when Anna told me not to stop. I imagined a life in Atlanta where we’d sneak to be together when my father goes to New York each week. And every single imagining ended the same way.

In our early deaths. Watching Anna be killed. Reality.

This is clearly not what Anna sees when she imagines us. She still envisions rainbows, kittens, and f*cking unicorns.

Frustration ignites. I explode. “I don’t trust either of us! We can’t be together in any capacity ever again. It’s a damn-near miracle you’re still a virgin now. If that Sword of Righteousness is intended for you to use, then you should want to stay away from me, too, because I promise I could not resist if you told me to pull the car into that parking garage right now.” I inch closer, daring her. “Could you resist a drug if I repeatedly placed it on the tip of your tongue, Ann? Could you? We’re playing with fire!”

Her eyes are wide and filled with realization. She now sees how hard last night was for me, but pity isn’t what I want. Nothing I say has the effect I need it to have. I glance up at the outdoor check-in desk, which blessedly has no line.