The Honey Trap by Cora Melbourne

Author:Cora Melbourne [Melbourne, Cora]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty One

I dreamed that I was dying. At first, I was simply Violetta—innocent and guileless, holding some naive belief in the innate goodness of life. But the dream took a sinister turn, casting me upon an abandoned stage within the auditorium of the very school that had stripped me of everything. Blood cascaded from my hair, saturating the ground beneath my feet, as if my soul had been cruelly bled away. A jolt of terror seized me when my mother’s face transformed into a reflection of Nik and Alexei, their shadows eclipsing any trace of comfort.

I woke up then, my head colliding with the glass of Maddox’s car window as he steered down an unfamiliar street.

For a short moment, I had forgotten what we’d done. As the memory resurfaced—the image of him above me, the condensation on the car windshield—I swear I could still feel him inside of me. His touch, like delicate brushstrokes of a butterfly’s wing against one’s cheek, left an indelible mark. It was the sort of sensation you could recall in your soul for years after. But even with his warmth still on my skin, it failed to ease the relentless emptiness inside me—a void I had grown accustomed to, now transformed by longing.

I had always been empty, yet this emptiness was different, tinged with a poignant ache. I was yearning for something unattainable, something I could have but never keep. Maddox Aster became a painful reminder of a life forever beyond my reach—a life he could give to someone like Daisy. I had no reason to hate her, yet resentment thrived within me. She embodied all I could have been, but life denied me that path, leaving me to smolder in the flames of envy. Maddox was the arsonist, igniting the fire within, and I burned a flame that only he could extinguish.

I couldn’t remember much of the drive after we had sex. Drifting into sleep shortly after, my consciousness fragmented, but in those short moments of wakefulness, he spoke to me like he would a girlfriend. He didn’t mention the sin we’d committed, the sin that whispered of damnation. Instead, he spoke to me as if we had known each other for years, and loved me throughout all of them.

Maybe “love” was too strong a word to use, but the sudden tenderness he showed me was nothing short of wild and unparalleled. I had never met someone who spoke to me with such softness, cracking jokes that invited shared laughter and casting sidelong glances, silently asking me to join in.

“You’re awake,” Maddox’s voice broke through the haze as he lowered the blasting heat. “We’re almost there.”

He veered onto a brilliantly illuminated street, and I watched as the dilapidated houses transformed into pristine, porcelain-like structures with no trace of wear. It was as if those homes had never been touched by people before, and I knew only the rich could afford.

“Thank you for picking me up from the station,” I said, my voice husky from sleep.

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