“You’re drunk,” she accused.
“As a skunk,” he agreed amiably. His phone rang, and he stared hard at the screen, frowning. “Keegan. Third time in an hour.” He pressed a button to silence the phone and carelessly tossed it on the chair behind him. “Sorry, hope you don’t mind me being here. If you do, I’ll leave.”
She should tell him to go, but something in the tone of his voice stopped her cold. “Is something wrong?”
“Wrong?” His bitter laugh reverberated through the space separating them. He buried his face in his hands, his voice muffled when he said, “What isn’t?”
Oh, hell. Something about the suffering he was clearly going through called to her, despite the fact that she knew better. Maybe it was because he’d never sought her out before. Or maybe it was because he was Dagan. Whatever the reason, she couldn’t just send him packing.
Not yet, anyway.
Lina took a seat on the lounge chair next to him, close enough to feel the heat emanating from his body. The muted scent of whiskey rolled off his lips, and the combined assault to her senses made her dizzy and half-drunk. Only he could still smell sexy while emitting the scent of hard liquor. Hell, on him, it smelled like a freaking aphrodisiac.
Then he raised his head and looked at her, and time stopped still.
“Lina,” he whispered.
She couldn’t look away. Didn’t want to. “Yes?”
With visible effort, he tore his gaze from her mouth and glanced straight ahead. “I shouldn’t be here.”
“No.” She cleared her throat and straightened her spine, fighting the urge to lay a hand on him in comfort…or maybe just to feel him up. “What’s wrong? And don’t tell me nothing, because that’s obviously not true.”
A soft snort escaped his lips. “The Supremes said it so much better than I ever could.”
“Um…what?”
“Never mind.” He stared down at his clasped hands for several long moments before replying, “I had an epiphany tonight.”
“What was it?” she asked, because he obviously needed to share. He’d come here for a reason.
His beautiful turquoise gaze locked in on hers. “What if you discovered that everything you are, everything you’ve become, is due to someone you hate more than anything in the world?”
His words shocked her into silence. He may as well have pulled them out of the very essence of her being. How much of what she’d become was due to Thorne, to the mistakes she’d made with him? How much had she done out of her hatred for the one man who’d given her the most precious gift of life, then taken it away?
Maybe if she told him, Dagan would understand. Maybe she didn’t have to be so alone.
Before she could second-guess herself, Lina reached out and closed her hand over Dagan’s. The little shock of electricity that raced into her palm nearly made her gasp. She swallowed hard. “I can say that’s probably true for me too, Dagan.”
He glanced down at her hand before turning his over so their palms touched. His gaze travelled up her arm to her face, and his free hand reached up to smooth a strand of hair off her lips. “Did you know that your hair shines as bright as the moon?”
“Dagan…” She averted her eyes and fidgeted, all too aware he probably didn’t even realize what he was doing.
“No, not the moon. The sun,” he whispered. “That’s what you are to me. My own personal ray of sunshine.”
“You’re wasted.” She tried to pull her hand back, but he didn’t budge. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“The hell I don’t.” He shook his head, a heavy scowl marking his features. “My whole life, I’ve always been trying to live up to other people’s expectations. Doing what my family thinks I should be doing. When do I get what I really want?”
“What do you want?” she found herself asking in a barely audible voice.
He let out a hoarse chuckle, his eyes surprisingly bright and earnest despite his state of inebriation. “Isn’t it obvious, Lina? Hasn’t it been clear from the moment we first met?”
His words made her chest tighten and an answering dampness spread between her thighs. Had he felt the same things she had? “What?”
“You. I want you.”
Lina had time for no more than a shocked gasp before he pulled her toward him, closing his mouth over hers. The automatic impulse to stiffen and pull away fled when his tongue coaxed her lips open and slid into her mouth with delicious persuasion. He tasted of whiskey and ocean spray and an erotic spice she’d never before experienced, and suddenly she couldn’t think of any reason why they shouldn’t be doing this. In fact, why hadn’t they done it before now?