Prologue

ASHLEY POV

"Why did you change your mind?" I asked Xavier who just returned from who-knows-where.

All he did was to smile at me. "I didn't..." 

I didn't let him say any further words, I rushed to kiss him. I was so excited to see that he didn't go for the trip. Honestly, I can't just stay a day without having Xavier by my side, he was kinda a second life to me, more of a soulmate.

At first, I noticed a slight hesitation in the way he kissed me, like he wasn't in the mood. I didn't want it to look like I was bothering him, I mean, that's unlike him. He never hesitate to kiss me back, he was all time available for it. But now, he seems different.

I pulled off, staring into those blue hazel eyes that keeps making me want to look at him every second and minute. I don't want to believe that he had done some thing with a different woman, making him less concerned about my kiss.

"What's wrong?" I asked him, searching his eyes for an answer.

"Nothing." He said coldly.

"Then why the hesitation?" I asked.

"Because..." He paused.

"Because of what?" I asked again, desperately wanting an answer.

"I don't wanna have that kiss right here. Why don't we do this some where more better? Like, in my room."

I smiled. He jerks me up into his arms, my legs wrapped around his waist as he took me up to his room. He gently drops me on the bed.

“Ashley?” He called in a slow and seductive manner, at the same time biting my earlobes gently. 

Looking up at him, I couldn't help but gulp down as the view of lust in his eyes was just so visible that he made me shudder in excitement. 

“Yes” I answered to his call after a few seconds of being mum. 

Wrapping his hands around my tiny waist, he pulled me close to himself like I wasn't close enough. With his gaze penetrating my eyes, my breaths seized in a second and I found myself living in his eyes only. 

Leaning his face close to mine that our lips were just an inch away from colliding, he whispered in a hoarse voice “I love you with every thing in me, Ashley.” with that, he crashed his lips on mine. 

Shortly I felt a cold substance on my skin, jerking up from the seat I met with Xavier's penetrating gaze. 

"Kiss me, Xavier. Kiss me like never before." He bent down, his lips against my cheek, brushing it lightly— and still that light touch sent shivers through my nerves, shivers that made my whole body tremble. 

"If you want me to stop, tell me now," he whispered. When I said nothing, he brushed his mouth against the hollow of my temple. 

"Or now." He traced the line of my cheekbone. "Or now." His lips were against mine.

"Or—"

But I had reached up and pulled him down to myself, and the rest of his words were lost against my mouth. He kissed me gently, carefully, but it wasn’t gentleness I wanted, not now, not after all this time. Besides, peace was never an option.

I knotted my fists in his shirt, pulling him harder against myself. He groaned softly, low in his throat, and then his arms circled me, gathering me against himself, 

Before I could withdraw my mind from its far places, his arms were around me, as sure and hard as on the dark road to Tara, so long ago. I felt again the rush of helplessness, the sinking yielding, the surging tide of warmth that left my limp. 

My face was blurred and drowned to nothingness. He bent back my head across his arm and kissed me, softly at first, and then with a swift gradation of intensity that made me cling to him as the only solid thing in a dizzy swaying world. 

His insistent mouth was parting my shaking lips, sending wild tremors along my nerves, evoking from my sensations I had never known I was capable of feeling. And before a swimming giddiness spinned me round and round, I knew that I was actually kissing him back.

He broke free from the kiss, staring into my eyes. I don't know what he's done to me, but whatever it is, he was winning over my tender heart. I was drawn to every thing that has to do with Xavier, now I realize I ain't just his weakness, he is my strength. He is the reason why I am here, why I live and why I'm surviving up till this day.