SWNOVELS The Charade: Chapter 41
I SLIPPED my hands up Ava’s back, tangled my fingers in her hair, and let myself memorize everything about how she felt in my arms as we kissed. Because if things went the way we feared tonight, the only time I’d be kissing her again would be in my dreams.
So this needed to be a goodbye kiss. It was one last opportunity to reveal how we truly felt before we were forced to lock away our feelings for the rest of our lives. This was most likely the last chance I’d be allowed to fully appreciate this beautiful creature who had wiggled her way into my heart over the past six weeks.
But even though I’d asked Ava for just one last stolen kiss, I knew deep in my core that this would never be enough.
I would still crave to be with her every second for the rest of my life. These moments alone with her were the times where I felt most alive—most like the person I was supposed to be—the most like my true self.
She might be my sister, I tried to tell myself as I pulled her closer when I should have been pushing her away. My own flesh and blood.
But I might as well have been speaking a foreign language because those words meant nothing to me.
Absolutely nothing.
I trailed kisses across her jawline, burrowed my face into the curve of her neck, and breathed in her intoxicating scent as I smoothed my hands up her sides and tried to brand it into my memory.
Because this would be the last time I’d ever be able to touch her like this again, when I could still claim to not really know anything romantic between us was forbidden.
I knew I should probably be disgusted with myself for even thinking it, but if I wasn’t worried about the repercussions for her, I knew I would gladly kiss her again.
Kiss her every day until my lips were swollen and her delicate skin was chaffed, and they would have to literally lock me behind bars to get me to stop.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
I was going to have to move out of the country and put an ocean between us to keep myself from acting irrationally.
I was just trying to figure out a way to ask her to run away with me when a loud gasp sounded behind us.
Ava’s hands, which had been sliding up my back the moment before went still, and she took a sharp intake of breath when she saw who had walked in on us.
I turned my head over my shoulder, to see who’d caught us, and found Ava’s look-alike.
Elyse.
And though it was dark and I couldn’t see everything clearly, I could tell from the way she stood with her hand to her chest and her mouth hanging open that she was shocked.
Shocked that Ava and I would be entangled in each other’s arms this way when we knew the possibility of who we might be to each other.
I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath. I didn’t want to release Ava yet—because I could hold her in my arms forever and still never get enough—but I forced myself to let her go and stepped away.
‘So…’ Ava said to her sister as she readjusted her dress until it rested over her hips more comfortably. ‘I guess you saw that.’
‘Yeah,’ Elyse said, still seeming shocked. ‘I-I did.’
I blew out a long breath because I really didn’t know how I could explain any of this in a way to make us look good in front of Elyse—like we hadn’t just been kissing each other when we knew it was highly possible we were related.
Ava didn’t seem to want to say anything about it either, so we just waited for Elyse to explain her reason for coming here.
‘So, um,’ Elyse said after realizing we weren’t going to address the big, fat elephant in the room. ‘Mom just texted me to say that she’s here and that she’s ready to talk to us in Mr. Hastings’s office.’