by Lily White
Her body trembles.
“Same.”
We both go perfectly still.
“And I can’t stop wanting you.”
Emily’s eyes clench shut.
What kind of idiot was I to think I could be alone with her and not end up in this place?
I honestly believed I could resist. That I could keep from touching her. That I could keep from hurting her in more ways than insults and threats.
We’ll destroy each other one of these days, yet we’re both powerless to stop it.
Violence, stripped of its hammering fists, of its gnawing teeth, of its razor-sharp edges and blinding explosions, is nothing more than a destructive force.
And that’s what Emily and I are to each other.
I’m beginning to believe that there’s not a single person or influence in this world that is powerful enough to stop us.
“I know,” she finally says. “And we’ll keep hurting each other. We’ll keep fighting. We’ll keep -“
My mouth is on hers before she can finish that thought, my tongue and teeth tasting and biting, fucking devouring her because I’ve lost the will to resist.
Not that Emily doesn’t give back, doesn’t take just as much as me, doesn’t grip my wrist in one hand and slide her fingers into my hair with the other. She pulls me to her as my fingers tighten on her throat, as my grip clamps down on her waist and I pull her close.
I can’t stand this woman for the hell she’s been in my life, but I can’t stop.
This isn’t love we’re engaged in now.
It’s hate.
Pure. Unbridled. And raw.
We hate that we can’t let go.
Hate that we can’t fix the past.
Hate that our present is fucked up beyond repair.
And hate that our future has always been impossible.
We take out on each other what we can’t fight around us. Both trapped. Both victims. Both bloodied and scarred by the wars that won’t stop.
Both violent.
And both defeated.
That doesn’t stop her from biting down on my lip, though. It doesn’t stop the growl vibrating my chest as my hand slips down to her ass to lift her up. And it sure as hell doesn’t stop the way her legs wrap around my hips like they are meant to be there.
The second the hard ridge of my cock presses between her legs, this beauty moans into my mouth, her body melting, her head falling back as I scrape my teeth down the line of her jaw willing myself not to mark her as mine in such a visible place.
Pinned against the door, Emily submits to the assault, to the man who abuses her, to the lover who takes what he wants.
She submits.
And I take full advantage.
Thank fuck she’s wearing a dress instead of pants because I would have torn through the fabric to get to her. This isn’t slow. This isn’t sweet. This isn’t about touching all the right places and taking care of her needs.
This is fucking, plain and simple, a man taking without thinking, and a woman giving herself up in an effort to soothe the beast.
Unbuttoning my jeans, I shove them off my hips, free my cock to push inside her and shove her panties aside. With one fast, hard thrust I’m inside her, Emily’s body slamming against the door as she’s filled entirely.
A squeak flies from her throat, both pain and pleasure, both heartbreak and love, before I pull out to the tip to thrust again a little harder.
My body moves mindlessly, my hips hammering back and forth, her body slamming against the door so hard it’s banging and rattling. Over and over and over.
Am I hurting her?
Probably.
And is she hurting me?
Yeah she is, just by giving this to me when I don’t deserve it.
With my face buried in her neck I insult her. I don’t even know what I’m saying, the words just pouring out. With each forward thrust of my hips, I confess how much I hate her, why I hate her, and Emily cries, but says nothing in return.
She’s letting me hurt her.
And I hate her even more for it.
How can I hurt the woman I’m supposed to protect?
Why won’t she stop me when she knows I’ve lost control?
When I come, it’s hard and deep inside her, my mouth covering hers as my cock throbs with the orgasm, her body clamping down on mine as she falls apart at the same time.
I’m sorry.
It’s all I can think.
A million times, I’m sorry.
Yet neither of us can breathe to say it.
Reality sets in immediately when our bodies calm down.
And with it, the guilt.
Always the guilt.
I’m destroying the woman who holds me together. And by hurting her I’m hurting myself. I should walk away. End this. Set us both free. But I can’t let go of a woman who was born to be mine. Even as the world constantly attempts to steal her.
I set her down, my head full of cobwebs and confusion, both our movements jerky and uncoordinated as we tuck our clothes into place and look at each other not knowing where to go next.
Silence sets between us so thick it’s deafening. That damn guilt hanging over us like a shroud. We’re in the same room and yet there are miles between us.
It should never have come to this.
And all I know how to do is make it worse.
“I should leave,” I say as I stab a hand through my hair, clenching my fingers to tug at the strands because...fuck...that shouldn’t have happened.
Yet we’re powerless to stop it because beneath the guilt, the hurt, and the hatred is a love so deep, so true and so undeniable that we’re puppets to it, our strings held by all the barriers between us.
We want a lifetime.
We want a future.
And all we’re given is short moments when we can pretend loving each other is possible.
Emily nods and steps out of the way, and when she turns her face, I know she’s hiding what she’s thinking and feeling.
I just used her, and she just let me.
A good man would stop and make sure she’s okay. A man who loves her would refuse to walk off.
I do love her.
But I’m not good.
Instead of comforting her, I slice her open again.
“I think we both know you deserved that.”
She flinches, but doesn’t look my direction.
“For what?”
Quiet for a few seconds, I answer, “You tell me.”
I don’t give her the chance to respond before I open the door and walk through it to leave. I don’t stop until I’m outside and climbing in my Jeep. I slam my hand against the steering wheel and lay my head back to stare up at the stars overhead.
They twinkle down at me like the night of the bonfire. The night Emily danced. The night everything went to hell. They mock me and I snarl in response.
By the time I’m pulling out of her driveway and onto the road, I’m laughing to myself to realize what just happened.
I’d gone to her house to guilt her into a confession. And all I managed to accomplish was hurting her again.
Like I always do.
Tanner and Gabe have nothing on me anymore. I think I’ve just sat on the throne and claimed my place as the cruelest son of a bitch in the world.
It makes sense, though.
Emily has always been a queen.
Long live the fucking king.
Emily
Is it possible for a day to explode? For it to just blow right up in your face until you’re left staggering, deaf and dumb?
It has to be possible because it just happened to me. Well, not just me, but Ivy as well.
I woke up in pain this morning, not just my heart, but my body as well. Ezra fucked me so hard that I can barely walk, my legs tired and shaking as I practically stumble to the bathroom to soak in the tub.
I’d already taken one the night before, but that wasn’t enough. And while allowing the h
eat of the water to soothe my tired muscles and ease the ache between my legs, I made the mistake of picking up my phone to search for Ivy’s newest posts.
The phone almost fell in the water when the first thing I saw was a news article proudly proclaiming the inside scoop on a millionaire playboy’s engagement.
The picture couldn’t have been clearer.
Gabriel Dane was marrying Ivy Callahan.
What in the actual fuck?
Obviously, my immediate response was to call Ivy. She didn’t pick up, so I ended that call and tried Ava. The call went to voicemail, and I sat in the tub wondering what the hell the Inferno was up to now.
Ava had warned us, though. She said for us to keep our distance, and while I’ve been ignoring those words, I thought Ivy had been slick enough to escape.
I was dead wrong.
Several hours later, I received a phone call begging for a rescue, my tires squealing loudly over the concrete as I peeled out of my driveway to pick Ivy up from Tanner’s house.
We’d hauled ass to her father’s house just to discover she’d been cut off as a result of the bullshit story Gabe had published in the paper. And by the time we reached my house, we were both beat down to shit, neither of us able to comprehend what happened.
Unfortunately, with everything Ivy was going through, I couldn’t bring myself to burden her with the truth of what is happening to me, so I lied again, pretending to be happy Ezra was coming to my house.
In truth, I was sick to my stomach.
Especially after what he did to me the night before.
And while I’m sure you’re thinking I’m an idiot for what I’m doing, what you don’t know is that it’s necessary.
Regardless of how it hurts me.
And despite how much I wish I could make it stop.
There’s more to this than Ezra understands. The pieces he gives me are vital. The trips I’ve made to his father’s. It’s all just another game being played that I can’t walk away from now, no matter how much I want.
After getting home with Ivy, all I did was take a twenty minutes shower. Yet when I stepped out...she was gone.
Just vanished.
Like I hadn’t just brought her to my house.
Like I hadn’t just saved her from Gabriel’s grasp.
Like I was losing my damn mind and had imagined all of it.
Which, at this point, is entirely possible.
Now, I’m walking down the hall to where my idiot brother is partying with his friends, my eyes burning from the cloud of pot smoke, my ears bleeding from the loud music pumping out of the room.
I shout to be heard over it.
“Have any of you seen Ivy?”
Dylan and his five buddies crack up like my question is the funniest thing in the world.
“We sold her,” the dipshit closest to me answers, “for five hundred dollars.”
The rest of them cackle harder, one jerk falling out of his chair because he’s probably too stoned and drunk to hold himself up. Meanwhile, Dylan turns to look at me with pure malice in his eyes.
“What do you mean you sold her?”
“We gave her up to Gabe, slutty sis. Fucker just left with her.”
Ignoring the name he called me - because apparently what happened with Ezra last night taught him nothing - I march back to my room to call Ivy and find out if Dylan is telling the truth.
Unfortunately, her phone rings from her purse that she left in my closet.
“Fuck...”
I try not to panic. It’s not like Gabriel will actually harm her. If anything, he’ll just drive her to a point of gouging his eyes out and running away again.
Ivy is a smart girl, and I have no doubt she’ll escape within a few hours, which means I should keep my phone handy for when she calls.
What does surprise me is that Gabriel was able to abduct Ivy at all. She’s not exactly the type of idiot to jump into a person’s white van, even if she was sold off by my asshole for a little brother.
Which makes me wonder if Ivy hadn’t gone with Gabe willingly.
I’m not even a hundred percent sure Ivy doesn’t want to be with him. It wouldn’t surprise me at all for those two to end up together. I just wonder if the world would survive whatever they could do if they ever decided to team up.
Sadly, it’s the least of my problems, and I’m reminded of that fact when the doorbell rings.
My eyes shut, and I toss up a silent prayer that Ezra is in a better mood today, especially with my brother and his idiot friends already causing problems.
I make it down the hall to see that neither Dylan nor his friends got up to answer the door. Then again, I highly doubt any of them heard the bell over the music.
Taking a steadying breath, I ready myself for the impact of Ezra’s pissed off stare, but step back in surprise when it’s Damon on the other side.
He gives me a crooked grin.
“You look surprised to see me.”
His eyes don’t match the expression he’s wearing, but I can’t read what’s behind them.
“Uh, yeah. I was expecting Ezra.”
The crooked grin tightens, but he blinks his eyes and shakes it off, something else wavering behind his amber stare that tugs at my heart.
“Are you going to let me in?”
No.
Yes.
Damn it.
“Yeah.” I step back and wait as he steps in, the room suddenly small, the air around me chaos.
Damon is angry about something, although I’m not sure what. It’s obvious by the tension in his shoulders and jaw, by the way his hand stretches and fists repeatedly, by the way his stare cuts my direction as if assessing me.
Then, as if he’d been somewhere else entirely, he notices the loud music pumping from the other room.
Tilting his head that direction, he asks, “Your brother?”
I nod, but then my eyes widen as he storms toward the hall, my hands feebly grabbing onto his arm as he easily shakes free of me and keeps going.
“Damon!”
Too late.
He grabs Dylan before I can walk into the room, my brother’s back slamming against a wall after Damon drags him from his chair and across the room.
I can’t hear what Damon is saying to Dylan over the music, but I’m not sure I want to. I’m too concerned about Dylan’s friends bristling like they want to jump in.
Six against one.
Bad odds.
Somehow I think Damon would still handle it.
Fuck this shit.
I’m so tired of all these men throwing their weight around without any concern for how it affects me.
Storming over to the stereo, I turn it off, then walk into the middle of the room to give my orders now that my temper has been pushed to its absolute limit.
“You five. Don’t you dare get involved. And Damon!”
He’s still in Dylan’s face, his fist gripping Dylan’s shirt, holding him in place. They’re nose to nose, but whatever Damon had to say must be over.
Seconds of tension pass, Damon’s hand finally releasing Dylan as he takes a step back.
“I mean it,” he warns. “Stop making her life hell.”
He stalks off into the hall, and my eyes lock with Dylan’s. I don’t know what to do about my little brother.
Obviously, he’s going through something that’s causing him to act out, but it’s no use talking to him about it. He won’t have a casual conversation with me, much less open up.
“I’m sorry about that,” I mutter.
He pushes away from the wall to walk back to the chair where he’d been sitting to begin with.
“Keep your dogs under control,” he grumbles as if he couldn’t care less what Damon did, most likely playing it off in front of his friends. “They’re getting really fucking annoying.”
With nothing I can say to that, I leave the room and head down the hall. Damon is pacing in my room, obviously agitated, his chaotic energy suffocating
.
“Why did you do that?”
Head snapping up, he stops in place and stares at me.
Rather than answering my question, he asks one of his own.
“Why did you never tell me about the promise you made to Ezra?”
Fuck...
That’s the last question I want to answer. And a heads-up would have been nice. It’s like Ezra wants to stab at me as much as he can, using every weapon at his disposal.
I still in place without anything I can tell him except the truth. If I didn’t have more than enough reasons to be mad at Ezra, I certainly have one now.
“I was trying to protect you both.”
“From?”
Damon steps in my direction, but stops himself several feet away.
“What would you need to protect us from?”
Each other, I don’t say.
Instead, I try to pass it off as something in the past, something easily explained as youth and inexperience.
“I didn’t know what to do back then. You wanted me, and so did he. I was afraid you two would fight. And because you were leaving together, I thought it would be better if I just walked away without causing a problem.”
“So you ditched us both?”
I nod.
“Okay, then tell me who you want now, because it’s obvious we’re right back in the same place. The only difference is I now know you promised Ezra something you never said to me. You never answered me back then, Red. And I think I know why. But why don’t you tell me?”
Damon already knows the answer, so I don’t bother explaining it. The truth is written all over his face.
All I want to do is reach out and smooth the pain from his expression, but I know better than to touch him right now. Anything I do would only hurt him more.
I have to hand it to him. Damon took no time at all cornering me on that one.
Sadly, though, what neither of them understand is that it has to end the same way.
No matter who I choose, the other will be pushed out.
No matter what I do, I’ve come between them.
And I refuse to do that.
I refuse to be that girl.
He steps forward. “Tell me who you want.”
“Neither of you,” I admit. “My plan was to get through whatever this six weeks is and then leave it that we’re all just friends.”
His brows crash together, the corner of his lip tugging up.