She blurted it out in one long, run-on sentence, breathless and broken and stammering her way through it until she petered out to silence at the end and stared at him, eyes huge and dark and haunted. D stood there in shock, stomping down his heart when it wanted to soar out of his chest, smothering the heat and the passion that rose in him like magic conjured from a sorcerer’s spell, and he felt bathed in drenching golden sunlight, his arms longing to crush her to him, a sharp, sweet thrill running through him as if he were a live wire, conducting electricity through his veins.
Then he thought of Alexi, of her face when she’d called him, her palpable relief, and the sweet thrill turned sour. She might not know how to love him, but it certainly seemed like she knew how to love someone else
