Broken Illusions: A Midnight Dragonfly Novel by Ellie James Read Free Book Online

real—”
    “Then don’t close your eyes.” He put a finger to my mouth. “You can’t torture yourself like that, living in a future that isn’t going to happen.”
    I looked at him, and wanted so badly to believe. He always did that, made me want to follow him to a world where the sun always shone and the only dreams that came true were those involving winning football games, going to college, and living happily ever after.
    But then, I knew his life had been far from perfect.
    He urged me closer, anchoring me against him with arms around my middle. “Think about the future that will happen. Think about our trip this summer—about Pensacola.”
    The warmth was immediate, radiating like sunshine from his body into mine. I sunk into it, running my hand along the barbed wire tattoo braceleting his arm, and held on so, so tight.
    “Sugar white beaches,” he murmured against the side of my neck. “Turquoise water.”
    I closed my eyes, wanted to see. Tried to see …
    He kissed his way up to my earlobe. “That’s where I go when I need something good.”
    I’d never been. I’d never been to the beach, never seen a dolphin play, never felt a wave crash over me. And I wanted it, wanted it so, so badly.
    Pulling back, I lifted my hands to his face, skimming my thumb gently along his busted lip. “When do you go there?” I wasn’t sure where the question came from—or why it scraped on the way out. “When do you need something good?”
    His eyes flashed, for just a heartbeat, before he glanced away, back toward the plate of brownies.
    And I knew. I knew when he went there, when he needed something good. It was when he thought about last fall. When he went back to the house on Prytania, to Big Charity …
    He said he didn’t. He said he didn’t go back, didn’t remember, didn’t even think about it.
    But I knew that he did. We all did.
    “Last night,” he said, returning his eyes to mine. “That’s where I went while in that tube having the CT scan.”
    It hurt to swallow.
    “Can you see it, too?” he asked. “Can you see this summer?”
    I tried. I wanted to. I’d pulled up pictures on Web sites.
    “Trinity—”
    “It’s strange,” I said, sliding my hand from his face to his hair. “I could never have imagined this a year ago.” The emotion was still there, the emotion I’d chained away before. But it was different now, the edges not quite as sharp, but still capable of slicing. I leaned into him and feathered my mouth against his, something inside me twisting at the faint, coppery residue of blood.
    “Being here, with you, like this. It’s like I’m living a—”
    Dream.
    The word stuck in my throat.
    “Fantasy,” I said instead. I had everything I’d ever wanted. “But when I start to look too far forward…” I closed my eyes. Because when I did, when I tried to go to this summer, to the beach, to the moonlit nights he talked about, everything inside me went blank.
    “Trinity—”
    I opened my eyes and drank him in, the blue, blue of his eyes and the dimple, even the scrapes along his cheekbone. “I want that,” I said, with a force that surprised me. “I want Pensacola. And I want Mardi Gras, and I want—”
    My heart to quit twisting.
    I looked away, toward the game board, where the wrench waited in the ballroom and the candlestick in the hall, the knife—
    “Trinity?”
    Something inside me stilled. I blinked, blinked again, turned back to Chase, and smiled.
    “And right now,” I said, sliding back from the warmth of his body. “I want right now—because you are so going down.”
    A low gleam came into his eyes. “You think so?”
    I resumed my place on the other side of the board. “I know so.”
    While his brother shouted at the game upstairs, Chase readied ours, picking up a pile of cards and fanning them facedown. “Pick one—but don’t turn it over.”
    I did as he instructed, sliding the card into the little brown envelope marked CONFIDENTIAL .
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