As soon as the district attorney chick saw me hugging and breathing in my bloody clothes, she left in a hurry. I winked at her on the way out just to creep her out more.
The person I least expected to walk in through the prison doors came to get me.
Tucker and his father came with a new set of clothes for me, signed some papers as my lawyers and offered to drive me home. I nodded silently and followed them out to my freedom.
“I know it’s past midnight, but instead of home, can you take me right to the hospital so I can see Grace?” I asked Tucker as soon as I sat in the backseat of his father’s car.
Tucker spun his head around all exorcist style and popped his eyes open wide, “Are you shitting me? Grace woke up like a week and a half ago and she’s been home locked in her room not talking to anyone but Lea. Nobody told you? I thought Alex and Conner were coming here like every day to visit you. What the hell, bro, shows you who your true friends are.”
“She’s okay?” I suddenly felt lightheaded and ready to pass out. Why hadn’t anybody told me? Why hadn’t anybody put me out of my damn misery? Tears stung my eyes and my heart felt a thousand times lighter; she was okay.
“Yeah, bro, she’s fine. I haven’t seen her yet though. Lea says she doesn’t want to talk to anyone yet.”
“Who do I thank for clearing me of the charges against me?” I whispered.
Tucker’s smile tightened. “The detective’s finally showed up at Grace’s apartment earlier this afternoon to give her a formal interview and she told them it wasn’t you. She said it was some stranger, an intruder who they happened to catch in the house.”
We drove the rest of the way back to our apartment in silence. Everyone seemed to be sleeping when I got home so I just jumped in the shower to scrub the last five weeks of my life away, wondering the whole time what was going to happen when Grace and I laid eyes on each other again.
Chapter 18
When I heard a familiar giggle at the end of the hallway my heart just about stopped and my feet felt nailed to the floor. Sliding along the wall to help her stand, Grace, my Grace, was making her way out of Ethan’s bedroom. She stumbled out, closing the door with a thud and fell, dropping the sexy as sin shoes she was holding in her drunk little hands. She slapped her hands over her mouth to stifle her giggles and my hands instantly balled into tight fists.
Seeing her for the first time in almost six weeks, I breathed in what felt like my first breath since I had last laid eyes on her. But as I inhaled, all I could smell was the bitterness of the whiskey and Ethan’s nasty-ass cologne pouring off her skin. It didn’t take much for me to realize what she must have been doing in Ethan’s room with the way she was haphazardly dressed. A pair of loose fitting ripped up jeans that barely stayed up over her lower hips and the tightest little damn shirt I had ever seen adorned her body. The words All I Need are Shoes, Booze and Bad boys with Tattoos were spread tightly across those freaking gorgeous breasts I loved, and the shirt seriously ended just underneath them, showing off her entire tight creamy flat stomach. Her hair was disheveled and I swear she had that freshly fucked look to her that I’d been aching for weeks to put on her face myself.
Describing the feeling of my heart completely being torn to shreds in that moment, I don’t think I will ever correctly express the utter torment that ripped through my body. There were no words for the despair. No way to describe how lost and hurt I felt standing there, watching my world leave another man’s bedroom. I couldn’t think a straight thought through the hurricane of human emotions that annihilated my heart.
When she saw me, she froze.
“What the hell?” I heard myself growl. And oh, yes it was a fucking animalistic growl. I couldn’t take it, I couldn’t take the way those beautiful silver eyes looked at me. Wide-eyed and paled faced, Grace flinched away from the shock of me standing in the hallway catching her. Sur-fucking-prize. Thoughts of Ethan’s arms wrapped around her, of his lips on her’s, made me want to punch my fist through the drywall. Fucking pictures of them flashed in my mind as if I had caught them on a freaking Nikon instead of her just tiptoeing her drunk-ass walk of shame out of his room.
“What. The. Hell?” I repeated louder.
Then she had the damn audacity to bite that plump lower lip of hers and look at me like I was willing to take Ethan’s sloppy seconds. Oh hell, no.
“Did you just come out of Ethan’s fucking bedroom?” I screamed.
Grace’s eyes widened even more and then she was gasping for air. A deep burst of crimson spread across her cheeks, and I fucking hated myself right then because it instantly became my favorite color. It killed me, it fucking killed me that this human could throw me away like I wasn’t once a god and I still loved her soul. It. Killed. Me.
She shook her head and it wobbled her whole body. “Yeah, but nothing...” she started to deny what I knew had probably happened.
My vision blurred, my stomach churned and I seriously starting planning to scratch my own eyeballs out if I began crying in front of this girl. “Save it. It doesn’t matter.” I walked past her and my bare arm grazed the softness of hers and I heard a low gasp, barely above a breath. Disgusted with myself even more, because it was my lips it had slipped through. The anger of what she had done to me, to us made my blood boil hot in my veins. God forgive me, I wanted her to hurt inside just as much as I did. I stopped moving, our arms still just barely touching, and I leaned my head down leveling my eyes to hers. “Don’t worry about locking the door behind you, we have easy ass like you coming in and out of here all the time.”
A tear trickled down her cheek and she leaned away from me, slumping heavily against the wall. “We were talking...”
I laughed, “Right, was that before or after you fucked him? Save it, why the hell would I care? I don’t want to listen to the blow by blow of your night.”
Clenching her fists she tried to straighten up off the wall but failed. “Fuck you, Shane!”
After all the hell I just went through, after everything I had given up for her, fuck me? Uncontrollable rage pulsed through my body and I felt disgustingly human and weak with the power my emotions had over me. How every human could fight against blowing their own damn brains out to stop these intense, insane emotions, was a complete mystery to me. I wanted out. I wanted out of this body. Out of this world. I wanted my wings back.
Fuck me? I lunged at her and swung her body over my shoulder, caveman style. I know, I’m a complete dick but I swear every day being in this human body was making me more irrational. No, I wasn’t being irrational, she slept with Ethan while I was getting out of jail, after giving up any chance I ever had to get back into heaven, all for her! I swear I felt the testosterone spike through my balls and spread out across the hallway. For a split second, I looked down to see if my skin was turning green and I’d be busting out of my shirt all Hulk-style. No dice. I seemed to be just temporarily fucking insane. I grabbed hold of the back of her thighs and carried her through the hallway toward the Bone Room. She didn’t even scream.
Thrusting open the Bone Room door as hard as I could, it smashed up against the wall inside the room and echoed its crash like thunder through the apartment. I plopped her down next to the door and stood over her, my body wracked with the tremors of my anguish. “Fuck me? Fuck me? You want to go in the Bone Room with me?” I dropped, crouched down to her level and slammed both my palms against the wall on either side of her face. The drywall cracked beneath my palms. Holy crap, rein it in, Shane, you’re being borderline abusive here. Yeah, I couldn’t stop myself even if God stood before me, “Because I could really get off on some head right now, since I’ve been in fucking jail for over a month.” I slid my hands down the wall slowly, never breaking eye contact with her. “I usually don’t like my girls still wet from Ethan, but hey, if you’re game...but if not, get the fuck out of my hallway.”
Then Grace slapped me.
Her hand hit me so hard that my whole face moved, and I deserved it
, I know I did. But I wanted her to hurt inside. I would never hit her, ever. But I wanted her to feel this…this emptiness that she left me with. Why the hell did she have to give herself to someone else? She was mine. Bile rose in the back of my throat as images of her legs wrapped around Ethan’s waist danced like sugarplums in my head. I was losing it.
She slid herself up along the wall, never taking her steely gaze away from me. “Don’t you ever lay your hands on me again, Shane. Get the hell out of my way,” she whispered. The way she looked at me then, I don’t know if I could ever handle seeing Grace look at me with that expression again; utter disgust. It killed me.
I stood up slowly, eyes still locked on hers. God, let me walk the hell away from her, give me the strength because all I want to do is kiss her.
She stormed past me slamming my shoulder with hers, and stalked down the hallway. I watched her pick up her shoes and head for the front door, and the way her outfit looked from behind caused a violent streak of heat to course through my insides. Grace’s shredded pants gave the world an intimate view of her perfect curvy bottom, “Sweet fucking pants, I bet Ethan really enjoyed that hot little ass of yours. Sure you don’t want to change your mind about the Bone Room?” My voice trembled.
She flipped me the bird. Then she left. Just left. No more fighting, no more denying any of it. Nothing. Not even a fucking sorry. It didn’t look like she remembered shit that happened when I rescued her from where Gabriel hid her while she was in a coma. She had no clue who I had been and she moved on.
Storming into my room, I slammed the door hard behind me and sat on the floor clutching my chest, the ache was unbearable for any human and I wondered if the pain would actually kill me. I couldn’t stand to breathe without her, so I stayed on the floor and waited to die.
I woke up swinging when an icy cold glass of something splashed across my face. Five guilty-ass-mother-fuckers stood over me. Conner, Lea, Alex, Brayden and Ethan. Alex, of course, was holding the glass, smiling.
“I’d start running, Alex, because as soon as I get up out of this bed…” I looked around me…okay, I was on the floor… “As soon as I get off the floor I’m going to kick your ass. Seriously? Why the hell am I on the floor?” Oh, right that’s where my heart broke last night.
Alex’s face reddened and he gave me a serious expression, “Look, Shane. We all came in here to say how sorry we were for not believing you and…”
“Forget it,” I cut in as I got myself off the floor. “Doesn’t matter. Someone has just got to tell me what the hell happened and who it was that actually did it. And why the hell nobody told me that Grace woke up and that she’s okay.”
Alex looked over to Conner and Lea and held his hands up in the air in surrender. “That’s all on Conner and Lea, dude. I was all for telling you but…shit Shane, everybody thought you tried to hurt her, why would we tell you anything?”
I raked my hands through my hair. None of this mattered. And I wanted Ethan out of my room. “Lea, can I talk to you alone for a minute?”
Alex shook his head at me, “I’m not leaving this room until I know we’re good. And you’re okay.”
I offered Alex a smile. “We’re good. Now all you back stabbing losers leave. I have to talk to Lea,” I said playfully.
They all filed out and I closed the door behind them. I didn’t even turn to look at her. “I caught her coming out of Ethan’s bedroom this morning. Tell me what the hell is going on, Lea.”
“I don’t know what’s going on, Shane. She’s broken. Shane, she locked herself in her bedroom until yesterday, when we forced her to talk to the detectives. Then Conner, Ethan and I talked her into going to the bar. I don’t know what the hell happened with her and Ethan. The only thing I do know is that she knows the Shane you were before her coma was the angel that she’d been looking for, for over two thousand years and now you’re not. You tell me what’s going on. She thinks her angel left her, did he, Shane?”
I looked into her pleading eyes. “Get this straight right now, Lea. I am not an angel. I’m Shane. Whatever I once was, was given up, for her. And I would never leave her.”
“Holy crap,” she smiled. “What the hell are you waiting for then? Go get her and tell her.”
“Yeah, sure, Lea. I’ll get on the end of the line that starts in front of her bedroom door. Right behind Ethan. Besides, I can’t tell her.”
“Kind of like the line she’s been thinking she was standing in for you. And why can’t you tell her?”
“I’m not allowed to. End of story.”
To hell with all of it. I gave up everything for her. And she handed it to Ethan. I bolted out of my room and ran straight to her apartment with Lea yelling at me the whole way.
Flying down her hallway, I kicked my foot at her door. Hard. And it freaking hurt. So what the fuck did I do? I did it three more times. Yeah.
“Open the door, Grace!” My yell scorched my throat like acid. My fist pounded on the door next. This was it; I was fucking done with this girl, I…
Her bedroom door swung open.
Ah. I was struggling for air.
I tried to take my eyes off of her. I swear to you I tried. They would have jumped out of my damn skull if I moved my sight away from her, I truly believed. She just took my fucking breath away. My hands gripped her doorframe, my knuckles turning white. I fought my entire body from lunging myself at her and slamming my lips against hers. She. Was. In. Her. Underwear.
My eyes traveled slowly over her creamy bare legs that went on forever. My heart rate just about tripled when a burst of goose bumps broke out along her skin. My gaze moved along the length of her inner thighs and gradually rose, then lingered on the tiny V-shaped black lace of her panties. My fingers itched to pull that lacy material to the side and taste her, dip my tongue deep inside her until she called out my name. My name; no one else’s. I continued sweeping my eyes across her skin to her bare stomach and followed along the curves of her full breasts that were lying heavily against the lacy of her tiny bra. Rosy, perfect nipples peeked out through the lace. My jaw twitched painfully to nip at them and I clenched my teeth together tight. When my eyes finally found hers, my breath was heavy, my eyes wide and my arousal was throbbing against the inside of my jeans. “Ah,” was all that came out of my damn mouth. There was no blood in my body; it was all pooled in my dick. I thought I would fall forward with the heaviness of it.
She placed her hands on her hips. “So, you’re banging and kicking at my door so you can just tell me...ah?” Her. Smile. WAS. INTOXICATING.
She slept with Ethan. She slept with Ethan. She slept with ETHAN. DO NOT TOUCH HER! My body leaned into her room and I had to lock my arms in place to stop myself from going any further. “Band meeting tomorrow...at eleven...at the studio,” I whispered hoarsely. I said nothing else; I just stared into her eyes and slid my hands through my hair wishing she could have been mine.
Lea stepping up next to us giggling, which stopped me from completely making an ass out of myself, because I was seriously about to reach my hands out to touch her. I glanced at Lea, who was smiling idiotically, and I stormed down the hallway away from Lea and that pure mind blowing jet black haired orgasm standing in the doorway next to her. I believe I might have growled as I left. Yep.
The rest of the afternoon and most of the night I spent drunk in my living room with Alex and Conner playing video games. Well, no not drunk. Completely and utterly trashed.
There are only five things I remember from those hours of my life that I will never get back:
1) I somehow ate a chocolate in the shape of a penis. It was delicious.
2) Beer shot out of Alex’s nose. Twice.
3) I explained in detail to Alex how soft Grace’s lips were. Then I drew him a diagram to explain it further.
4) I hid all of Tucker’s underwear in my freezer. I ran them under the faucet first to get them nice and wet.
5) And at some point, I had a conversation with Alex and Conner that went
something like this: “Okay, okay just shut the hell up for a minute, this is really-really important. We need to find someone to take us to Taco Bell. (Alex drunkenly raises his hand) Just, no–no way, you can’t drive us. You’re too drunk. So listen, I will buy whoever takes us to Taco Bell…I’ll buy them anything they want…I’ll even buy them the car. (Alex drunkenly raised his hand again.) Alex, you want a burrito? A burrito? Buurrrrittttooooo, wow. That’s just a fucking awesome word. I’ll give gas money. (Conner says something incomprehensible) I just…shut up for a minute…if I don’t get Taco Bell, you’re going to see a side of me that you wished you hadn’t seen. I know you think I’m joking, but I’m not. I’m not. I need…I need a fucking burrito. From Taco Bell.”
I woke up the next morning on my couch with Alex slumped up against my shoulder surrounded by, I shit you not, fifty-four wrapped Taco Bell burritos and a slew of open half eaten ones.
I don’t remember eating even one of them.
My head throbbed and my body ached, but I still threw on my running gear and forced myself to run with Conner through Central Park. We went back to Lea’s apartment as we did every morning for coffee or water. I prayed that Grace was still asleep.
Sweaty as hell, I leaned against their kitchen cabinets and downed an entire bottle of water as fast as I could. I wanted to get out of there before either of the girls woke up.
As I swallowed the last gulp, my kryptonite walked in. She wore an old button up lumberjack shirt that fell off her shoulders and barely reached the curves of her bottom. Then, can you imagine what she did? She stood on her slippered tippy-toes and reached up for a coffee cup and that old button up lumberjack shirt slid up above her ass, giving me a view that made my damn knees go weak. Damn, she was perfect, and I could barely stop myself from grabbing that backside and burying myself inside…My thoughts stopped when I got an elbow in the gut from Conner, who was laughing his ass off at my expression. I probably looked like I was already having sex with her. Tossing my empty water bottle in the garbage, I stormed out growling. Yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of growling lately around her, I know. “Catch you later, Conner,” I called out when I reached the front door.
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