The Last | F. Dracy

Chapter 9: A Dangerous Game

Darcy had committed many errors in the course of his life.

Some had been the heedless follies of youth, others the graver misjudgments of pride, but none—none—had ever left him in such a state of disquiet as that which had passed by the lake.

Now, standing alone where she had so lately stood, with the echo of her voice yet lingering in the air, he was struck by the most unwelcome of realizations.

He wished to do it again.

He wished for her anger—for the sharpness of her words, the vehemence with which she had spoken them, the fire in her eyes that had burned with such undeniable force. Better, he thought, her wrath than the cold, unconcerned silence of indifference. Better the sting of her accusations than the far more intolerable prospect that she might look upon him and feel nothing at all.

He exhaled sharply, raking a hand through his hair, his thoughts no more collected than his pulse was steady.

He had played a most perilous game, and it was no small miracle that he had emerged from it with his composure intact.

For one moment—one terrible, exquisite moment—he had stood upon the very edge of ruination.

She had been so near, her anger a living thing between them, her breath quick, her form trembling not merely with rage, but with something deeper—something unspoken, something neither of them dared to name.

And God help him, but he had wished—

No.

He had ached to close the distance between them.

To reach for her.

To silence her curses with the press of his lips.

To make her understand what he could not say.

To make her feel—

To make her see—

That this was not mere anger.

That whatever lay between them was not hatred.

It was something far more dangerous.

And it had not faded.

Even now, though she was no longer before him, he felt it still—a wound yet open, a fire yet untamed, a force from which he had neither the power nor the desire to retreat.

And, what was worse—

He did not wish to retreat.

A dry, mirthless laugh escaped him then, as he shook his head at his own folly.

Two years.

Two years had passed since he had last seen her, and in that time, he had convinced himself that what he had once felt was but a youthful delusion—a fleeting attachment, long since extinguished by distance and reason.

But now—

Now, he knew better.

For if time had wrought any change in him, it was only this—

His resolve had been a falsehood.

And his desire for her—for her fire, for her spirit, for the way she looked at him as if she alone saw the man beneath the name—

That had never died.

He inhaled deeply, rolling his shoulders as though the weight of her absence might be shaken from him by sheer force of will.

He had lost himself, for a moment, by the lake.

But next time—

Next time—