Everything to Lose (Moonlight Dating Series #2) Read Free Page A

of his mouth on hers, his hands to roam over her, and his body to warm and fill her. It was a dangerous thing to remember a rogue lover’s touch. It made one desire the unattainable.
    But today she didn’t want to be amazed by this man. She didn’t want remember...
    Fat chance.
    How many times had she called herself an idiot in the past half-hour? Make that one more , she mused.
    His unusual taciturnity made her jittery. Something rode his mind. The sooner he spoke, the quicker she could put him out the door and out of her sight.
    “Spill the beans.”
    “Huh?”
    “You want to tell me something. That’s why you came. Drop the act, for once. Please?”
    She waited through his hesitation.
    “You’re right,” he caved. “I wasn’t entirely honest when you asked me why I came. Fact is, I had to see you. I’ve been worried about you, and I’m sorry for not c alling you—” he finally started .
    He stopped when she raised her hand and shook her head.
    She had encouraged him to speak, but this was too much. It was a can of worms she wouldn’t open. “Please, Dane. Haven’t we hurt each other enough? What’s done is done.”
    “Lissy,” he insisted. “I’ve had all this time by myself, all this time to think about what’s important and what ain’t worth shit. I came to realize that I had everything I ever wanted and I was stupid enough to let it go.” Damn him.
    “You know that’s not the point. The point is that I wanted one thing and you wanted another. I should have spoken up a lot earlier.” So many should ’aves, would ’aves.
    He seemed to unravel before her – his face revealed so m uch pain and confusion.
    The floodgates of H ell were opening wide and fast and she was stuck to the ground, with no means of escape, waiting for the first fiery flam es to consume her in everlasting damnation.
    “Please...listen to me. I miss you so much it hurts. Nothing makes sense any more.”
    An empty shell—I know all about that .
    “When I get my morning coffee, I expect to see you right there with me in the kitchen. At lunchtime, I have to stop myself from calling you just to hear your voice.” He started to reach for her hand, but then seemed to think better of it. She watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down. “And at night… at night it’s the worst. I reach for you in my bed, but all I find is space. I miss you. I miss this house—any house, if you’re in it. I miss us .”
    There it was. He had ripped his heart out and laid it at her feet.
    She couldn’t take it. What could she possibly do with that kind of admission?
    Stunned and speechless, she simply sat there, staring at him. Of all the roiling emotions inside her, the most overpowering was the anger that once more came to the fore.
    Yes, anger was less toxic than guilt.
    “So now you decide you miss me, and you fly across the Atlantic to tell me all of this. But what about me? Have you given one tiny thought to all the heartache I ’ve had to go through? You think about how you feel, what you want to do. But let me tell you something, it’s not all about you. Things just don’t work that way!”
    Hurt crept in to Dane’s eyes. “I messed up and I can’t take that back, no matter what I do. I need you, Lissy, and leaving you was the biggest mistake I ever made. I want to make it up to you, get things back to the way they used to be.”
    Her entire body was now reduced to a quivering mass of seething energy. “Don’t call me Lissy anymore. You have no right. Do you hear me? No right!”
    “I’m so sorry, but this can’t be it. You have to give us a chance.”
    The blind rage ebbed a little but left a vacuum that was quickly replaced by a perilous sense of hopelessness and despair. “ Why ? Tell me, why did this happen to us?”
    She peeled that question off from the depths of her gut, jerked the band-aid from the throbbing wound in her heart. The emotion was all bare for him to see and trample on.
    She sounded like she was