He yanked me from the table as my body was still rocking with waves, and he set me on unsteady feet and whirled me around.
My hands shot out to brace myself on the table, unprepared for the sudden shift. Immediately, he had me wound up again.
Grabbing my bottom in both hands, he filled me.
Hard and fast and possessive.
His face buried in my hair.
Two thrusts and I could feel it.
The erratic jerk of his body and the moan of his spirit as he took me flying with him again.
The chant wouldn’t stop rolling from his tongue. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
And God, I couldn’t understand what he was apologizing for.
His body stilled, and he clutched me tight. He slipped his arms around my waist, and he leaned his chin over my shoulder and brought us cheek to cheek. “What have you done, Mia? What have you done?”
Twenty-Two
Leif
Twenty-Three Years Old
“What is this?” The sound of Maddie’s voice stopped me in my tracks.
I’d been walking down the hall to the bedroom to grab my shoes so we could leave for dinner.
One second I was without a care.
Fucking happy for the first time.
Truly happy.
Not the fucked up, toxic kind, a fraudulent high that burned through my veins and left me in chains.
Next, alarm was sending a rash of nerves tumbling down my spine.
Barbs that lifted the hairs at the nape of my neck and shot my heart into overdrive.
Like any sudden movement might scare her away, I slowly turned around.
Maddie was standing in the middle of our living room with a fucking block in her hand. I gripped two fistfuls of hair.
“Baby,” I wheezed.
Her face pinched in rejection.
Like she’d already heard the lie that was getting ready to come out of my mouth.
Same ones I’d been telling for the last six months.
Except for then, she didn’t even have the suspicion, had no clue who I was.
Wanted to keep it that way because the last thing I wanted was for this amazing girl to know the real me.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I told her, hands coming out in front of me like I was trying to calm a scared animal.
Except it was exactly what it looked like.
Her chin trembled as she tried to hold back tears. “Then tell me what it is,” she demanded, a sob hitching into a plea. “Tell me what this is.”
“Baby.”
I was across the room in a flash, ripping the coke from her hands and tossing it onto the couch, wrapping her up in my arms.
She went weak in my hold.
Sobbing into my shirt.
My innocent, harmless girl.
“You’re a liar.”
I nodded into her hair. “I am.”
A motherfucking bastard.
But she didn’t know I was shackled.
Fettered to the only life I’d known until she’d changed my perception of what life was supposed to be.
She clung to my shirt. “Why? How could you keep this from me?”
“Because I knew I never would have been right for you.”
She pried herself back, peered up at me. “I . . . I don’t understand. You have . . . you have a good job at the shop. Why would you—”
I pressed my fingers to her lips. Cutting her off. “It’s just a front, Maddie. A cover for who we are.”
Hurt spilled from her trusting eyes.
“Keeton?”
I gave her a tight nod.
“Braxton? The rest of the guys?”
Each question she demanded hit me like a gunshot. “Yeah,” I managed through gritted teeth.
She dropped her head into her hands, and she started to tremble. She turned away like she couldn’t stand to continue to look at me
“I can’t . . . I can’t believe this. It’s all been a lie. All of it. Us. This house. Our relationship.”
“No. I love you, Maddie. I fuckin’ love you. It’s the only true thing I have in my life.”
I took her by the elbow.
Gently.
Tenderly.
With the little good that was in me because that little good belonged to her. “I never wanted you to look at me this way.”
Emotion crested from her. Coming at me in waves. Warily, she turned back to look at me, tears coating her cheeks. “Then change it. Stop. Be the man I fell in love with. Because you know I can’t stay here, otherwise.”
I wound my arms around her. Hugged her tight. “Okay.”
* * *
Keeton laughed. Nothing but mocking. He set his elbows on the table and threaded his fingers together. Eyes dimming with the evil that lived inside. “You think it works like that? That you can just walk? I think you’re smarter than that.”
Twenty-Three
Leif
I jerked awake. Disoriented. Body warmer than it’d ever been. A sense that everything in the world was right, which should have been my first clue that something was very, very wrong.
Tiny specks of light filtered in through the drapes that hung over her window.
Her window.
I slammed my eyes closed when I realized I wasn’t waking up to the same twisted dream I’d been fighting for the last month.
Nope.
It was even more fucked up than I could have imagined.
I was actually wrapped around Mia West from behind.
In the motherfucking bare flesh.
That mass of black hair was bunched in my face, and her sweet spirit was dancing all around me. Tight, lust-inducing body tucked to the well of mine, like she’d been perfectly carved to fit in that space.
Panic welled to overflowing as my arms curled tighter around her.
She rustled, the tiniest moan coming from her mouth that had me conjuring scandalous ideas all over again.
As if I hadn’t done enough.
Should have known if I stayed it would turn out this way. Should have trusted my gut when it’d first warned me to get up and go. That my staying here was only going to bring more calamity.
But no. I’d chosen to torture us both. Did I really think I could push us right up to a razor-sharp edge and neither of us were gonna get cut?
Slayed.
Misery pulsed.
I gulped around it.
It was worth it.
Worth the additional penalties that would be dealt.
Even if saving that little girl meant their names might not be avenged.
That selfish thought might as well have punched me in the face.
Fear and disbelief traipsed over me, a wild disorder, because I couldn’t understand the spell this woman had cast over me. This girl who snuggled tighter into my hold like she thought it was a possibility that I might never have to let her go.
Since I was already gettin’ selfish, I took a little more, held her tight and breathed her in and whispered that I wished I were better. That I might have something left that I could offer her.
But it was time to suck it up and accept the truth.
Devils and angels didn’t mix.
I forced myself to unravel from her. As quietly as I could, I climbed off the side of her bed, snatched my jeans from the floor, and shrugged them on. I gathered the rest of my things from where they were scattered around.
Heaving out a sigh when I looked down at her, I gave myself one second more to look on her beauty as the sun peeked its way through the drapes.
I slipped out Mia’s bedroom door, only to pause to take a glance toward the room where her children still slept.
A pang slammed me. Somewhere deep. Something I couldn’t allow myself to feel.
I ducked out the main door and made a beeline down the hall, barely slowing when I got to the multipurpose room at the back.
And fuck, had we found a new purpose for it last night.
The girl written on my skin
, the taste of her emblazoned on my tongue. Knew I wasn’t ever going to be the same.
The girl another regret.
Another sin.
Another due.
All of it on me.
I burst out the door and into the rising morning, ensuring the door was shut and locked behind me.
The ground was still damp and littered with leaves and branches from the violence of the storm last night. I rushed across the yard, bare feet on the concrete, my steps echoing their retreat.
A bastard who’d done his bidding.
I flew into the small guest house and went straight for the shower, like the scorching hot spray might burn away the brand she’d scored on me. No chance, but I still tried. Scrubbing at my body until it was raw.
By the time I stumbled out and dried and dressed, I could only feel her more.
Girl had gotten under my skin. Burrowed herself under my flesh. Would be just fine if those marks only went skin deep. But I knew . . . knew from the first night I’d met her that she had the power to seep into the cracks and the fissures. To embed herself where no other person could go.
Panic blazed, ignited by the suffocating guilt.
A shock of weakness slammed me, and I planted my hands on the dressing table to keep myself from falling, dropping my head between my shoulders with a heavy exhale. I squeezed my eyes closed like it might offer some relief. “Fuck . . . Maddie. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Only you. Forever. No matter what.”
“Do you promise?”
“I promise.”
Her voice twisted through the room. A ghost. A specter.
Frantic, I moved for the closet in the bedroom and grabbed my backpack from the top shelf. I started shoving in a few things that I had to have, hands shaking like a bitch, before I moved into the bathroom to get my things in there. I knocked half the shit sitting on the counter onto the floor.
Not taking the time to pick it up, I left it and ran out into the living room to grab my notebook and my drumsticks, and I shoved them inside the bag.
I could send for the rest of my shit later.
I had to get out of there.
Right then.
No more playing these games.
Tiptoeing into a field of landmines where I’d already planted the bombs.
I knew full well where not to step, but my feet were treading there, anyway.
I tossed my backpack over my shoulder, grabbed my phone, and tapped out a message.
Me: Yo, Rhys. Change of plans. I’m heading back to Charlotte. Let Emily and Richard know I’m going to be in town.
A few seconds later, my phone buzzed.
Rhys: What the fuck, man, waking me up at the ass crack of dawn to give me some shady-ass message. Only good reason for waking a man from his beauty rest is to tell him you won the lottery or there is a fight going down and you need a real man for backup. Doesn’t sound like either of those to me. So what? You bailing on Sunder? Or did they kick you? Drummin’ not good enough?
Could tell he was trying to inject some humor into this shit. Guy always doing his own tiptoeing while slinging a load of bullshit.
Talking me down from the ledge I always teetered on. Like if he rambled enough of his nonsense, he would get a few true words from me. Guess he knew me better than I wanted him to.
Me: Just . . . changed my mind.
Rhys: Bullshit.
Me: Doesn’t matter.
Rhys: Sounds like it does to me.
I squeezed the phone in my hand, tipping my face toward the ceiling and gritting my teeth like it might rid me of the shame.
Problem was, I wasn’t entirely sure where it was coming from, which was completely fucked in itself.
Girl had messed with my mind.
My pulse screamed, roaring in my ears, and I had a pretty damned good idea that she was messing with my heart, too.
Me: Just deliver the message, would you?
Needed to get back to my band. To my music. To my one reprieve.
And relief was not something I was going to find with the words I was writing here.
I grabbed my keys from the high bar, rushed back through the guest-house door, and headed for the gate.
I shouldn’t have looked back.
I knew it. But I’d never claimed not to be a goddamn fool, and I didn’t think I was physically strong enough to ignore the fucking hook that had sank into my back.
My eyes raced, already moving, drawn to their destination.
Through the far windows in the main house in the kitchen, my eyes tangled with hers where I knew she was standing at the sink.
Sable eyes.
Fathomless.
Bottomless.
They speared me from all the way across the yard. She might as well have been standing right in front of me.
Hurt.
Sorrowed.
Rejection bleeding out.
Worst part was the acceptance that I found there. Like she’d already known I would let her down, exactly the way I’d promised her I was going to do.
Emotion wobbled at the corner of my mouth. A pathetic smile. A halfhearted apology.
Truth was, I was sorry.
I was fucking sorry, but it didn’t change anything.
Forcing myself to turn, I let myself out the gate. I jabbed in the code on the pad to the side-door of the garage harder than necessary, keys getting stuck, like they were pissed off by this whole situation, too.
Rejecting what had to be done.
But it did.
Couldn’t allow my judgement to get clouded any farther. Couldn’t let myself sink any deeper.
Pushing the button to lift the third garage where my bike was parked, I went straight for it.
I flung my leg over the seat and settled myself onto the heavy metal, grabbed the handle bars, and squeezed them tight.
Trying to focus through the turmoil.
Through the betrayal of feelings that seethed inside.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I mumbled, pinching my eyes closed and trying to get myself together. I needed to reclaim my purpose.
What terrified me was that picture was getting vague. Distorted at the edges. Changing shape.
I forced myself to kick over the engine. The motor rumbled low, power vibrating through my body. I pulled back the throttle, revving it, doing my best to convince myself to pop it into gear.
Nothing.
No will.
Go, Leif. You’ve got to get the hell out of here before you lose your cool.
Yeah, that didn’t work because I climbed off my bike.
I stared at it before I turned to glare at the door that I’d just come through like it was going to swallow me up.
I couldn’t believe that I’d been so reckless.
That I’d allowed myself to feel this.
That I was actually just going to walk away like a fucking coward. No care for the girl who’d given herself to me. Who’d offered me care and kindness.
Love just because she was willing to let a piece of herself go even at the risk of getting trampled.
“Fuck it.”
Maybe staying here for a minute was exactly what she needed. Maybe Lyrik was right. Maybe they needed another set of eyes watching over them.
Offering a little good.
At least that was what I was telling myself when I jammed the button to close the garage, tossed open the door, and stormed back up the sidewalk.
I buzzed through the gate, legs carrying me faster than they should as I made my way along the edge of the pool toward the main house.
Truth was, I had no idea how to face what was waiting inside for me.
And still, I was unable to stop.
Damn the consequences.
Here I was, stepping into Eden. Just a quick deviation on my way to Hell.
I let my backpack slide from my shoulder and drop to the ground, never slowing, just picking up speed while that bitch Karma ran along beside me ranting in my ear.
/>
She could fuck off right about then.
I punched in the code, threw open the door, and stepped into the great room.
No doubt, I appeared half deranged. Raging. Body shaking with a type of adrenaline that I didn’t know how to shake.
Violence, I got.
But this?
It was an entirely different thing.
Kids were in the living room, but I moved right for Mia who was in the kitchen. She gasped and whirled around, and she leaned against the refrigerator door for support.
The girl the best thing that I had ever seen.
Wearing a silky robe that was doing stupid things to my head and desperate things to my dick.
I eased her way, and those sable eyes that had already told me goodbye filled with caution and confusion, and it was clear from the moisture still clouding them that I’d made her cry.
“I . . . I thought you left,” she whispered over a harsh breath.
An entire gulf separated us. A sea that I didn’t know how to cross.
I choked down the panic that had chased me in here. “I couldn’t.”
“But did you want to?” Hurt bled from her words. Her delicate throat trembled.
“Felt like I should stay.” The words grated free, scraped from a block of stone.
She almost laughed, her head shaking.
“You felt like you should stay?”
It was an accusation.
“Yeah.”
Sweat gathered at the nape of my neck when she turned away like she couldn’t look at me.
Nerves going haywire.
I inched around the island.
That crazy energy banged.
My pulse got swept up in the force of it.
I stopped a foot behind her, not sure what the hell I really thought I was going to do. Tell her that I never wanted to leave. That I wanted to stay. That I’d be with her if I had the choice.
She swiveled back around.
“You don’t owe me anything, Leif,” she whispered below her breath to keep the conversation from the kids. “I knew what I was getting myself into last night. I was the one who chased after you.”
Kiss the Stars Page 21