by KV Rose
I reach for it and his hands slide down my back, cupping my ass through my yoga pants.
“Keep doing that, Za, and I’m going to fuck you right here in the lobby.” He shoves me up against the reception desk to prove his point, bending his head to kiss my neck.
I run my fingers through his thick, bronze hair and breathe in his dark, woodsy scent. “Aren’t we supposed to meet your mom for dinner?” I ask him as he bites my neck and I lurch against him, the hairs on the back of my arms standing on end. I’m in a sweaty sports bra, my hair hasn’t been washed in days and I really, really need a shower, but Alex does not give a fuck.
He trails his mouth lower, over my collarbone, tugging down my neon pink bra. His tongue licks my breast, his fingers on my back, and I know without seeing it that his thumb is brushing over the scar from the glass in my apartment that night.
The one Eli Addison gave me.
We don’t talk about Eli much.
But sometimes, when I see that scar in the mirror, when I get too close to the edge of a pool, I think about him.
Sometimes I wonder what if?
What if things had worked out differently? What if I’d never grabbed that net? What if I’d never jumped in the water? What if I’d believed his bullshit, about needing me? About wanting me? About loving me?
Alex pulls back, cups my face in his big hands. I lock my own around his neck and smile up at him, forcing Eli from my mind.
What’s done is done and I can’t change it.
Maybe Eli Addison suited my temperament for a little while. My crazy. The old me. Maybe the sexual shit we did was good and maybe we had some strange sort of fun, fucking around with everyone around us. Including my now husband.
But I couldn’t have lived my life with him.
He would’ve left me when he graduated, or he would’ve killed me himself. Or I would’ve gone on to worse drugs. Worse things.
A worse life.
He would’ve moved on to someone else. Someone else to break.
“What’re you thinking about?” Alex asks me quietly.
I meet his gaze and wonder if he knows. When I think of Eli, I always have this strange sense that Alex can read my mind. Like the three of us are still somehow morbidly connected, even though Eli has been dead for three years.
The thought makes my heart flip in my chest. My stomach drop.
Still. After all this time.
He’s dead.
I knew him for half a year, and most of that time I was fucked all the way up. But even if it was for the bad, he changed my life.
And without him, I wouldn’t have the man in front of me.
I stand on my tiptoes and kiss Alex on the lips. He kisses me back, but then he picks me up, puts me on the counter at the desk behind me, and steps between my thighs.
“Princess,” he whispers, pressing his brow to mine. “You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”
I force a smile, slide my hands down his back. “I know, handsome.”
He softens, his shoulders relaxing as he sinks closer to me, gripping my hips. “I love you, Zara Rose.”
“I love you, too, Alex Christian.”
And I do.
I love him.
I just think a part of me died with Eli in that pool, too. A part of me that was wild and reckless and a little insane. A little off. That part of me died and I’m not so sure I don’t sometimes want her back.
Sometimes, I just want to go off the fucking rails again.
As happy as I am with my life, with my husband, with the community we’ve put together in the same town he grew up in, with his mom nearby, and mine coming every other weekend, and Kylie and Ian working as pharmacists at the clinic just up the street, as much as I love this life, sometimes I just want to go a little fucking wild.
And I think only Eli would understand that.
My heart aches a little, imagining it. Imagining if I had gotten clean, if Eli had gotten counseling. If we had put our crazy together for good instead of evil. Instead of a way to pass the time. To entertain ourselves.
What would we have been, then?
One single decision changed my fate. Picking up that net and jumping into that water, not letting him drown Alex.
That changed my whole life.
For the better.
Definitely for the better, because this man in front of me is everything.
But there’s always that voice in the back of my head.
“I cancelled on my mom,” Alex says, jarring me back to the present. His eyes are searching mine. “I thought we’d go to the boardwalk, then see a movie?”
It’s summer, and the boardwalk is always crowded on Friday nights, but it’s kind of nice. I’ve gotten used to being in crowds without being on something. It’s like I can just disappear in them.
And with Alex’s arm around me, I never feel awkward or strange like I used to as a teenager. I just feel loved.
I just wish that was enough.
I wish feeling loved was enough to tame my fucking restless soul.
But I just have to get through that one day at a time. One hour at a time. One minute.
Maybe one day I’ll stop thinking about him.
Maybe one day I won’t be in love with a ghost.
“That sounds perfect,” I lie to Alex. “That sounds like an amazing night.”
He kisses me again and I feel my phone buzz in my back pocket. After we’re done losing ourselves in each other on the counter in our gym, I read my text as Alex heads to the bathroom.
Jax: I’M OUT, ZA!
I bite my tongue, holding back my smile as another text comes through from Jax.
Him: I’ve got some good shit. You still down at the coast? I can come over.
I glance over my shoulder, toward the hallway Alex disappeared down. Jax spent two years in prison for possession with intent to distribute, but it seems like he’s ready to get back in the saddle.
I send him a heart, think of all the ways he touched mine. Then I block his number and delete his texts from my phone.
Afterword
As someone who has many antisocial traits, this was not a manifesto against psychopaths. This ending was bittersweet for me in many ways.
A bonus scene is available on my website (authorkvrose.com) if you’re interested in reading more about Eli.
Acknowledgments
First thanks goes to those of you who made it through this book. I appreciate you. I swear to God I have the best readers on the planet, and that means you.
Thank you, too, to Christina, Kandace, and Taylor, for reading this sh*t in its rawest form. I am so grateful to you three.
On that note, thanks to my reader’s group. God, I love you all.
I need to include my husband in this somewhere, so…this is that. Thank you for everything. I love you.
As always, I couldn’t write a word without music. Thanks to music? That doesn’t make sense, but whatever. You get it. Or not.
About the Author
K.V. Rose is an author of dark romance. She lives with her family in Toronto. She’s usually drunk on coffee or rum. Sometimes both at one time. You can find her on social media nearly everywhere at AuthorKVRose.
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Also by K V Rose
Let Me
Break Me
These Monstrous Ties
Pray for Scars
The Cruelest Chaos
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