by Chloe Walsh
“He saw me,” Hope wailed. “Teagan, he knows you’re here.”
“What?” My voice was small and frightened. I could feel my eyes bulging in my face. “What did you say?”
Pushing us both into the apartment, Hope swung around and slammed the apartment door before bolting it.
With her back pressed to the door, she let out a huge sigh of relief. “There,” she half-slurred, half-hiccupped. “That’ll keep the big douche out.”
“A deadbolt?” Shaking my head, I clawed at my hair, as I looked around frantically. “You really think a fucking deadbolt is going to keep him out –”
“Hope!”
I heard my roommate’s name being roared out seconds before the sound of banging infiltrated my eardrums.
“Face him, Teegs,” Hope slurred. “Just get it over and done with.”
“Like you faced Jordan?” I shot back heatedly, before rushing over to help Hope barricade the door with my body. “Hmm?”
“Hope, I know you’re in there. Open the goddamn door, or I’ll kick it in.”
Oh god, I needed to disappear. My living-breathing nightmare had arrived on my doorstep and I needed to find the best damn hiding spot that had ever been created in all of time. Jesus, why couldn’t I have been born with magic powers or an invisibility cloak like Harry Potter? Yeah, sure he was up against Voldermort, but I was pretty sure Voldermort didn’t hold a flame to Noah Messina.
“Go away, you big ass,” Hope screeched, stumbling away from the door.
“Hide,” she mouthed to me and that’s exactly what I did.
Running like a headless chicken through our own tiny apartment, I dove behind the couch just as the door of our apartment was smashed clean off its hinges.
“Is that any way to speak to your uncle?”
Pain, excitement and anticipation flooded through me like a shot of heroin injected into the waiting vein of its faithful disciple.
He had that much of an impact on me.
Noah was that big of a problem for me.
Steeling myself, I slowly rose to my feet, inhaled a calming breath, caught a quick glance of my comatose roommate passed out next to the coffee table, before locking my eyes on the cheating bastard in the flesh. Noah Messina’s raw, masculine beauty sucker punched me directly in the stomach and I felt my heart flutter around recklessly.
Damn him…
His dark brown eyes were focused entirely on my face as he ran a hand through his thick black hair. He inclined his head in my direction before letting out a heavy sigh. “Thorn.”
“How dare you come in here,” I screamed in a fit of boiling anger seconds before somersaulting over the back of our couch and launching myself at the big bastard in my doorway. Calling me by his old pet name Thorn caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on edge and memories I’d spent years forcing out of my mind to impale me.
“Hear me out,” he grunted after I’d delivered the first blow to his chest.
“Go to hell,” I screamed before swinging my fists and hitting him again and again.
“I’ve been there, sweetheart,” he shot back. Grabbing my wrists to stop me from striking out at him, Noah turned us around. “And it’s not fucking pretty.”
I continued to struggle, kicking and flailing my arms, claws out and teeth bared, in my murderous attempt at hurting the man who had ripped me to pieces so many years ago and in so many ways that I’d been unable to piece my pride or my heart back together. “I loved you.” I wanted vindication. I wanted revenge. I wanted a fucking explanation, dammit. “I loved you, Noah.”
“I know,” he replied in a gruff tone, dodging my blows. “I know, Thorn.”
Ugh. “Agggghhh.” Furious with myself for admitting such weakness, I locked onto his shoulder, biting down harder than I’d ever done before. In that moment I wanted to rip the man to pieces. If I had to do that with my teeth then so be it…
“I see you’re still as demented as ever,” Noah growled as he pressed me against the wall. “But don’t worry. I still find your psychotic tendencies a real turn-on.”
Bastard…
I bit down harder.
“Dammit, stop fucking biting me!” Shaking me like a ragdoll, Noah pinned me to the wall by my shoulders, before pulling back quickly – out of harm’s way I guessed.
“Get out of my flat,” I seethed, chest heaving. I tried to calm myself down, but it wasn’t happening. Rage, lust, fury and excitement were thrumming in my veins. My body was on high alert.
“Not until you hear me out,” Noah replied calmly, his body crowding mine, his very presence breaking my heart – ripping me apart. The atmosphere between was clouded with a fucked up mixture of anger and want, and the cold inside my heart that had protected me these last seven years was melting me from the inside out at an alarming pace.
“You’re a lying, cheating bastard,” I screamed, holding onto my hurt, before pushing my hair out of my eyes. I knew I looked like shit, but I was beyond caring. I was beyond the point of return. That man had flipped a switch inside of me. “Asshole.”
Folding his bulging arms across his chest, Noah glared down at me, his face suddenly serious. “That night.” His voice was deep, rough, and his breath was coming short and fast. “You jumped to conclusions. You need to hear the truth, Thorn.”
“I don’t need to hear about what I got a front-seat view of, Noah.” I sneered. Wrapping my arms around my waist, I tucked my chin downwards and strode forward in the direction of the bathroom, refusing to give him an inch. “Keep your distance from me, dick brain.”
“Think about it, Thorn. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a fucking cheat.” Noah grabbed the back of my shirt and dragged me backwards into his embrace. “I fucking loved you, Teagan. It was real love. It was hard fucking love.”
“You lost the right to love me the second you put your lips on her,” I said in a flat tone. “Don’t bother wasting your words on me because what we had…” I inhaled a shaky breath. “What we had, it’s dead and gone.”
“Teagan,” Noah warned. “Don’t be such a fucking princess. Stop being so goddamn stubborn and just hear me out.”
Pulling free, I turned, met his stare head on and narrowed my eyes. “So don’t touch me, don’t look at me. Don’t fucking acknowledge me. We’re done. We never happened. We never met. You don’t know me.”
I was losing control of myself. I needed to get a grip, but every time I tried to grab onto the ledge of something rational the image of Noah and Ellie together –their sweat-soaked naked bodies fused together– impaled my mind and I felt like bursting into flames.
Rage over this bubbled inside me. “I wish I never met you.” I closed my eyes and inhaled a slow calming breath before I spoke. “No, scratch that, I wish you never made it out of that car. Because you, Noah Messina, are by far the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
There was a long stretch of silence, and then the sound of a door banging.
When I opened my eyes I was alone.
Alone with a broken heart, and a soul full of regret.
Teagan and Noah’s story continues in
Thorn, Carter Kids #2
April 1, 2016