TWO HALVES OF A WHOLE

15. "MOONSTRUCK"

ANNLIN'S POV

"You did all this for me?" I asked, still hard to believe everything around and ahead was just for me.

"Only for you," reassured the man standing behind me, chasing away the last slight bit of whatever uncertainty I had, leaving me in a leathery daze where I could only think about how the night changed from alarming to astounding real quick.

Damn, brain, I need a rewind ASAP.

An hour ago

...

"You didn't said anything about that date."

"One condition. It will be a non-date."

"Okay."

"When?"

"Turn around."

And I did, chanting a lot of 'What the hell?' in my head. But there was nothing but darkness. But it happens in the blink of an eye, quite a distance from where we are standing, I suddenly see lights.

"Roshan,"

"Yes, sweetheart,"

Tell me if I'm seeing things, or "Is that...", actually, "...a beach house?"

"And, it's waiting for you." He whispered against my ears.

"Waiting for me?" I slowly turned towards the man who peacefully stood with hands in his pockets in his black glory like he didn't just cause me a mini attack. And the intensity in his eyes with which he is watching, or more like studying me, is making me so damn twitchy, dismissing me from my thought of why I turned around in the first place, like even when it is his coat that I am wearing, what in actual dark romance do I almost feel him on me?

And that damn cologne.

Leather and wood.

That's what it smells like, a scent that screams Roshan Davidson.

'Powerful and Mystifying'.

It penetrates my senses, making me maddened and so distracted in its wake that it sends chills down my spine.

No.

It's just the cold. It's JUST the cold. IT'S. JUST. THE. COLD.

'Repeat a lie often, and it might become the truth, "sweetheart".'

That's what I've been doing since the second this mountain of a man put that thing around me anyway. Even while doing that, a scene from a few months back in the hallway, when I felt what it is to be in Roshan Davidson's arms and how the same cologne soothed me in ways nothing ever had, is constantly playing in my head. It might be difficult for me to remember everything after that fucking phone call, but even in the blur of thoughts and non-stop hiccups, I still clearly remember how I felt safe in those arms.

Maybe that's why I came here. All alone in the middle of the night with a man I barely know. And, no, it's not about fright. It's funny he looks like the predator who just got his favourite prey, but I'm still standing in front of him, not budging without the thing predators like him thrive on.

Fear.

I mean, when you were emotionally numb for way too long, some feelings will never really return when things get back to normal, I guess. So no, Roshan Davidson doesn't scare me. The little girl who feared anything and everything in childhood would be so proud.

But does that mean I trust him?

I don't know. Do I? Maybe I trust myself enough to come with Roshan here. But going to that house feels like an eternity. Because even when I wanted to run to that house and see what was waiting for me, something stopped me, or more like the fragments of ugly memories of the scared little girl.