Exposed

by Aster, Willow

  “You have my full support,” Luka says. “I have reason to believe my father is part of this and I have to figure out a way to stop him. He’s been pulling strings in his prison cell.”

  “What?” I turn to Luka. “Why haven’t I heard about this?”

  Luka gives me a droll look and I shake my head, wanting to make a comeback but knowing my brain has been shit lately. I’m losing everything here. Can’t even do my job properly anymore. I rub my hand over my face and flinch when I run into the wounds. I think about the beating last night and wonder if it was the collectors from the casino like I thought…or if Titus has been pulling my strings too.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mara

  I have to get out of the house. It feels like it’s closing in on me. Alex is back in Yuman, Mother is angry with me and vice versa, and I can’t be around Luka right now. Running into Jadon will just make me feel guiltier if he’s even still around. I’ve been swimming in it since we talked. Basile has been nice lately, but we’ve never been ones to chum around during the day. It would be weird.

  I get the news back from my doctor that my test results are clear. At least my stupidity with the stranger didn’t get me an STD.

  I pack a bag for the beach and sling it over my shoulder. I’m wearing a comfortable sundress but grab a wrap for later. When I step into the hallway, I tiptoe so my shoes don’t make a racket and announce to the household that I’m making my escape. But I’m so quiet, I practically run Elias over. His head is down and so is mine, and we collide.

  I drop my bag and he picks it up and holds it out, still keeping his head down.

  “Sorry,” he mutters.

  I take a look at him and grab his arm. “Elias! What happened? Are you okay?”

  He looks at me with dead eyes and my hand drops.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Yeah, it looks like it.” I gasp when I take in his puffy eyes and his nose. “Oh my God, your nose.” I step forward and move the hair that’s partially covering his eye. “Who did this to you?”

  “No one you need to worry about, trust me on that.”

  I frown at him and run my fingers down his cheek softly. His eyes close for a second and when his eyes open again, his pain is obvious.

  “What can I do to help?”

  “Has it even been twenty-four hours since you slapped me across the face? We hate each other, remember?”

  I swallow hard, reluctantly pulling my hand away. I look down and wince when I see his cut-up knuckles. “Funny, it doesn’t feel that way when I see you suffering. Only when you’re being a jackass, which is most of the time these days.”

  His lips tilt up and my heart picks up a beat. “Your boyfriend must be gone. You’re almost being sweet again.”

  My mouth falls open from the whiplash. I guess I deserved that. I step back from him and tug on the strap of my bag. “You should ice that nose. Your girlfriend might not be into this look so much.”

  He grins and the pain on his face when he remembers he shouldn’t have is hard to watch.

  “Come here, let me put something on that face. What’s going on with the rest of you—is it as bad as this?”

  I motion over my shoulder and surprisingly, he follows. I get one of the first aid kits out of the hall closet and lead him to my room. When we step in, I shut the door.

  “Always angling to see my body,” he mutters, but his tone is light.

  I roll my eyes. “Your ship has sailed, buddy.”

  His head turns abruptly and I see the panic in his eyes before he smooths out his features. Instead of pressing him about it, as I’ve always been inclined to do with him, I ignore it and take out the antibiotic ointment. All the while, my body is humming. Why do you insist on fighting your feelings for me?

  He pulls his shirt off and I try not to gasp when I see how badly he’s hurt there too. I take him into the bathroom and methodically tend to each wound. He watches me intently, but neither of us speaks. The room is popping with tension and awareness. I love being able to touch the taut muscles across his chest and arms, even as I’m hating the circumstances that made it possible. It’s too sad to think about—that this is the only access I have to him—but I’ll take what I can get.

  When I touch the worst cut on his face, his breath quickens, but he doesn’t make a sound. His eyes just roam my face, his attention on my lips when I look at him. I swallow hard and keep applying the medicine. When I get to the cut on his lip, I make eye contact with him again and the heat in his eyes is undeniable. He wants me as badly as I want him. I brush my finger across his bottom lip, applying pressure on the cut. He closes his eyes for a moment and the air around us goes still. When he opens them again, he steps closer and leans his forehead against mine.

  I put my hand on the counter to avoid holding onto him, weak with his closeness. His hand curves around my waist and he pulls me to him, his chest rising and falling against mine, the hardness of him like a pulse against my stomach.

  “Why couldn’t we be kids again, when all that mattered was how long we could play or how many treasures we could find before dark?” His voice is low and sends a sharp wave of desire through me.

  “What’s really so different than that now?”

  He chuckles and groans because it still hurts. “Good point. Not much, I guess. You are a woman with expensive tastes, still searching for those treasures.”

  I lean back and look at him. “You think that’s all I care about?”

  “I know it matters to you.”

  “I think it’s always mattered far more to you than it ever has to me.” It’s true. He has always wanted to prove himself and to have the finest cars and clothes; his house is a source of pride.

  “Easy to say when you haven’t had to work for anything you’ve been given.”

  The words sting, but they usually do with him now. “You can’t fault me for the family I was born into.”

  “My mother always reminded me to watch my place.”

  I step back from him and turn to the sink, washing my hands. “Is that what she told you? And you believed she was right?” I dry my hands and turn to look at him. The age-old hurt making my heart pound.

  “She wanted to protect me…wanted me to realize my place, to know I would never be an equal to someone like you.”

  The hurt in his eyes makes it clear that he’s speaking the truth, despite the smile he attempts. I move closer to him again, putting my hand on the one place on his chest that isn’t bruised.

  “Elias, she was wrong. It doesn’t matter what we’re born into, how wealthy one of us is, or how smart, or strong…we’re the same. Our hearts are the same. Somewhere along the way, you shut yours off to me and stopped believing in us.”

  “She died right after I heard you’d started sleeping with Alex.” The steel in his face is back, the ice. “That was confirmation for me. You betray me and my mother dies, begging me to find a sweet, normal girl who wouldn’t cut my heart out.”

  I nearly choke with a gasp and cover my mouth with my hand, backing away from him.

  “She warned me you were just like your mother. I never did find out how she knew so much about Cecilia, but now that I know your mother a little better, I can see the resemblance.”

  “You’re all cleaned up now, properly medicated…you can leave.” I turn and walk out of the bathroom, moving toward the bedroom door as fast as I can. I open it and turn. He’s still standing in the doorway of the bathroom, watching me.

  I look away and hear him moving closer, stopping until he’s right in front of me. He puts his fingers on my chin and lifts my eyes to his.

  “You need to let me go. This hold you have on me—we’ll keep destroying one another if we don’t just let go.” His eyes fall to my lips, even now willing me to steal a kiss while his words cut me like a knife.

  “Do you remember the day you saved me?”

  His fingers drop like they’re on fire. “Don’t do that.” He shakes his head.

&
nbsp; “Do what?”

  “Remind me of our history. I’m asking you to move on.”

  “But it’s who we are. Moving on is impossible. We’ll never be over.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mara

  I was thirteen and Elias was fifteen. We spent every day together, often huddled under the cave of the big boulders between our houses. Usually I was content with that, but this day, I wanted an adventure.

  “Let’s go out there today.” I pointed to the rocks that hollowed out into a cave in the water. Neither of us had ever made it out there. It was far enough to be challenging but close enough to look possible.

  “I don’t know. Look at the water. It’s choppy today. Let’s at least try on a calmer day.”

  I stood up, brushing the sand off of my shorts and putting a hand on my hip. “Chicken?”

  He stood up, grinning. Elias was always amused by me, even when I was daring him; it was my favorite thing about him. “Never.”

  I tilted my head and shrugged a shoulder. “Then let’s do it today.”

  He looked at the water again, his forehead creased in the middle of his brows, deep in thought. Finally, he nodded. “If we get tired, we swim back. No questions asked.”

  “Deal.”

  We walked along the beach and then I ran into the water, diving in. I felt the water shift when he dove in beside me and felt powerful over the fact that I’d convinced him to do this. He was usually the voice of reason, but a dare nearly always brought him over to my side.

  We got further out and the water became drastically rougher, the waves coming at us in an erratic rush. I managed most of them okay and then a massive wave came at us just as we were coming out of one and I wasn’t ready. I choked and didn’t have time to cough it out and hold my breath again before another wave dragged me under. I sank down, down, down and thrashed around in the water, trying desperately to hold my breath. I panicked. Inside and out. I couldn’t break the surface and it was terrifying. Just as I was out of breath, I felt Elias’s arms around me, pulling me up. When we surfaced, I gasped and choked and couldn’t stay above water without his help. He tucked me next to him and swam us back to shore, carrying me out of the water and rubbing my back as all the water I’d ingested came back up.

  When I finally caught my breath, I sat up and rocked back and forth, terrified by how close I’d come to drowning. He wrapped his arms around me and held me until I eventually calmed down.

  “You saved me,” I choked out.

  It was his words then that have always stayed with me. He leaned back so we were face to face and his eyes were filled with tears. I’d scared him and it was a shock to see how shaken he was. I put my fingers on his cheek and he swallowed hard.

  “I will always take care of you, Mara. You and I—we’re meant to be together. If you die, I die. And while you live, I’ll be right by your side.”

  I leaned my head on his chest and smiled at his words. “No dying today, thanks to you.”

  His chuckle rumbled in his chest and I lifted my head to smile at him. “No dying today.”

  * * *

  “‘While you live, I’ll be right by your side’…those were your words, not mine,” I whisper. “And ‘we’re meant to be together’—do you remember saying that?”

  He looks at me as if I’m a stranger and my heart is torn in two. I know if he’s really seeing me, he’s seeing the longing that is still stamped on my heart for him. He’s a part of me that I cannot ever let go of, and the old Elias wouldn’t have asked me to.

  “It’s time we stop this push and pull,” he finally says. “Time for us to not be so toxic together.”

  “We’re toxic because we aren’t together—don’t you see? That’s the problem! And the sooner you admit that, the sooner we can both be happy.” I fling my arm out toward the hall. “You’re trying to wipe the memory of me clean with all these women, and now Brienne…she won’t be able to fill my void.” I get in his face and he goes completely still. “No one can.”

  I slam the door shut and put my hands on his cheeks, pulling his mouth down to mine. I kiss him hard and at first, he’s stiff and his lips are closed walls, but when my hands find his hair and I pull him even closer, my tongue tracing his lips, he yields. Slowly, and then all hell breaks loose as he lets me in. He tastes like blood and neither of us care. We both crave the burn.

  He grips my waist with his fists and the deeper our kiss goes, the freer his hands become. He backs me into the wall and lifts me up, wrapping my legs around his waist. I don’t check to make sure I’m not hurting one of his wounds, I hope I give him more. He needs to feel this.

  He breaks away long enough to look at me as he gives a long thrust into my core and my head falls back, even with the layers between us. His tongue flicks my neck as he kisses his way up to my mouth again and when he reaches it, he groans. He thrusts again and this time I cry out, which only makes him harder. He does it again and again and I start matching his tempo. Neither of us stop, our movements jerky and frantic and desperate.

  He lifts my sundress and undoes his zipper and when the tip of him nudges its way inside of me, my eyes roll back in my head. He has to slow down drastically to fit, but I’m so ready for him, it doesn’t take long for him to slide all the way in. Once he’s in so deep I can’t think of anything but how full he makes me, he drives into me again and again and doesn’t slow down this time. It’s more than I can take and my head falls back against the wall as I fall apart. I shudder against him. Sweat covers us completely and we’re all moans and heavy breaths, but inside I feel weightless, like I’m floating. He groans and pulls out, leaving me bereft, and I feel the warmth seeping down my thighs as he finishes.

  He puts his head on my shoulder and lowers me to the floor as we try to catch our breath. His hands lift off of me and onto the wall in front of him, making me ache with their absence. When he leans back, he avoids looking at me and I feel empty.

  Lost.

  Cold.

  Devastated.

  He untucks his shirt to cover what just happened between us and doesn’t say a word as he opens the door and walks out of my room.

  Out of my life.

  * * *

  It’s still daylight, but the dark has come for me and won’t loosen its grip. I crawl into bed and I’m not sure when I get out of it again. I move only to go to the bathroom and one other time to take off my clothes. Sometime later, I decide to clean myself and wonder if Elias has washed off what we did yet or if he also let it stay with him for a while.

  The memory.

  The pain.

  The mistake.

  I never thought I’d feel that sex with Elias was a mistake, but what we did…it was the final nail in my coffin as far as Elias is concerned.

  I know it with everything in me.

  He’s done with me.

  I’m nothing more than someone he wants to forget.

  Dear Elias,

  I still get shaky when I think about how close I came to drowning, but everything that happened afterward makes the experience worth it. You and I have never had a single fight—weird, right? I fight more with everyone else in my life, but with you, it’s always easy.

  You understand me better than anyone.

  But just in case that ever changes—I hope to God it doesn’t!—but just in case…

  I’ll never forget the words you said on the day you saved my life. You said you would take care of me forever, and I believe you. And that we were meant to be together—you said those exact words! It meant everything to me. When you said you’d always be by my side, I imagined us as an old couple sitting out on our rock, watching the sunset and the stars coming out to dance, and I can’t think of anything better.

  You make my life worth living, Elias. It’s true. I wish you weren’t so hung up on my age because I’m so ready for you to just KISS ME ALREADY. A real kiss this time.

  Yours forever,

  Mara

  Chapter Seventeen
/>   Elias

  I drive home, cursing myself the entire ride. What the hell was I thinking? I just fucked Mara Catano. Mara and I had sex for the first time against her bedroom wall. I pumped into her hot, tight heat like a savage, never once stopping to see if she was okay, not thinking about the repercussions, just single-mindedly taking what I wanted.

  Her.

  She already consumes every thought, asleep or awake.

  And now, after having her like that, in my arms, all warm and supple and squeezing me so tight, how the fuck can I go back to a world without her in it?

  I bang on the steering wheel, yelling in the confines of my small sports car.

  She felt even better than I imagined, but the shame of having our first—and last, I mentally throw in there—time be like that…I can’t believe this is what I’ve become. My obsession with her will be the death of me. It already feels like she’s been the death of my sanity, the death of my integrity…what is left of me if I’ve lost all that?

  My body feels every tight, sharp pain from the fight, and now there are new aches where her hands squeezed me as if she couldn’t get close enough. I want to feel every single raw cut like it’s happening for the first time. I deserve this agony.

  But she’s everywhere. Even as I pull into my driveway and walk into my house, I see her here, her blond hair shining like the damn sunshine in my dark hallway. Her piercing blue eyes studying everything in my office, like she was memorizing it for later. The way her scent lingered in the air long after she was gone, like it does on me now.