🗝️Detective Ryker Viltarin must uncover dark secrets before he loses not only his heart but also his life.🗝️
You're on your own, far from home
The wind is blowing in the top of the pines
A gloomy sky where the sun never shines
Deep...
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It was as if Ray had cracked the hard shell of an oyster and found the small, shimmering pearl of hope underneath. There may be a chance of something bigger in this place after all.
Inside Eve, the tiny spark had fallen into the parched straw and now blazed all the brighter. Following the tug in her chest, she approached Ray and pressed her lips to his, hungry for affection that made her forget everything around her.
Ray liked her.
The thought made her stomach tingle like a whole hive of bees. She hadn't felt this way in a long time, hadn't allowed herself to, and dreaded it because she was so terrified of falling hard again. After all, everyone knew what happened to those who flew too close to the sun. But here and now ... she couldn't have cared less.
"Eve...," Ray murmured against her lips. "I have something important to tell you ..."
His words were lost in the next kiss.
"Shit," he growled, and Ray pulled her tighter against his chest, "How am I supposed to ..."
His mouth lunged hungrier for her lips, and Eve felt him sigh as he possessed her more greedily. It was as if they were addicts and the other their only salvation. His tongue lapped at hers, and the mixture of his scent with the nuances of forest and aftershave made her legs go weak.
"NO!" Liam's shrill cry made them both flinch abruptly.
Eve's heart, soaring high a moment ago, dropped like a stone back to the hard ground of reality, and her stomach sank when she turned her head and saw Liam standing on the slight rise.
Hope and change were a shimmering bubble of mother-of-pearl and rainbow colors—a bubble about to burst.
"No-no-no!" A moment ago, the boy had been holding a salamander in his hand, which he must have wanted to present to them proudly. Now, the little creature fell to the ground among the many leaves with a muffled plop and seized the opportunity to escape to freedom.
Liam's small hands clenched into trembling fists as he stomped defiantly on the ground. His stunned face turned into a spectacle of rage and exasperation, and Eve barely recognized her son. Her heart seemed to burst instantly at the sight.
