by Cora Kenborn
Fucking hell.
Shiloh is on her knees with an open prescription bottle in one hand and about a dozen tiny blue pills in the other. My limbs feel frozen, but as her cupped hand inches toward her open lips, I snap out of it and lose my shit.
I mean, I lose my shit.
Throwing my arm out, I grab her hand and jerk it away from her mouth, sending the pills scattering across the bathroom. She doesn’t time to react before I grab her by the shoulders, hauling her to her knees and against my chest. I can’t speak, reacting on instinct as my heavy breathing fans across her face, revealing the jagged scar she tries so hard to keep hidden. I wait for a reaction, but her usual gray eyes are almost charcoal, reflecting nothing but empty darkness.
I give her body a shake, trying to reach her. “What the hell was that, huh? What were you trying to do?”
She just stares at me, her body going limp in my arms. The lack of response ignites a wave of anger in me I don’t see coming, and my hold tightens, lifting her slightly off the floor until her toes dangle.
“Answer me, Shiloh! You brought pills here? Were you doing drugs in my center?”
Blinking twice, she shakes her head, a single tear rolling from the corner of her eye.
“Then what were you trying to do?”
“Sleep,” she says flatly.
I’m not sure I hear her right. “What?”
“Sleep. For once I want to sleep.”
I roll my head to the side. “Shy…”
“All the screaming had stopped, but it’s back.” Her words are monotone, like she’s stuck in a nightmare. “I can’t close my eyes. I haven’t slept in over a week, because every time I do, all I hear are the screams.”
“Whose screams?”
“Kirkland’s. Mine.” She lets out a shuddering breath as her head lolls on her neck. “Yours.”
“And you thought nobody would care if you downed a bottle of pills to do it?”
Shiloh lifts her chin, meeting my averted gaze. “Would they?”
I have no idea if it’s the fragile look in her eyes or the way her body clings to me, but time reverses back to when I looked into that same face with the same desire. What I felt then was pure and unstoppable.
My mouth is on her before I can stop it, cradling her face between my palms and mumbling between frantic kisses, “Goddamn it. You’re so stupid, Shy. You’re so fucking stupid.”
Her lips are so damn sweet, and even shaking with fear she tastes like rain and sunshine—just like I remember. Weaving a hand through her hair, I trail the other down her spine and settle it on her ass, squeezing so hard she moans into my mouth.
And that moan is what does it. It’s what sends me over the edge. Her weakness brings back a memory I’ve tried to forget, but her response ignites a fire I can’t control.
“Hold on to me,” I whisper against her lips. The minute she complies to my demand, I lift her in my arms and set her on the edge the small sink. She barely has time to steady herself before I force her lips open again, a rush of hot lust tearing through me. She grips my shirt and falls into me, making a desperate situation damn near violent. Fisting her hair with one hand, I reach down with the other and squeeze her breast through her tank top.
Shiloh throws her head back, gasping for air as I lower my mouth to the hollow of her neck. “Cary…”
“No talking,” I command, licking the indentation above her collarbone. Barriers are pissing me off, so I jerk the tank top strap off her shoulder and grind my cock against her. “I want you. Right here.”
She feebly nods toward the hallway while her fingers still tug on my shirt. “But what about the boys?”
“Then I suggest you don’t scream.” Kicking what’s left of the door closed, I move my kisses back to her lips, diving deep and demanding as much as she’ll give. I’m losing myself in every sigh, every groan, every scrape of her nails because I want it. Because I know she wants it. Fuck, because at the very least, I deserve it.
Overdue and ready to explode, I fumble for the button on her shorts when an alarm goes off in her purse. Pulling away, Shiloh glances toward the floor and bites her lip.
“Ignore it,” I demand, undoing the button and going for her zipper.
She stops me, placing a shaking hand over mine. “I have to go.”
“The hell you do.”
“I have to see Will.”
Hearing my best friend’s name on the lips of the woman I have every intention of fucking screws with my head. Jerking my hand away, I eye her suspiciously. “Will? Why the hell do you have to see him?”
“I have to check in. It’s required.”
Of course she does. Why wouldn’t Will cockblock me right now? He warned me when he dropped her off two weeks ago not to do this. Well, not this, exactly, but he warned me not to let personal vendettas cloud my judgment when it came to Shiloh.
Is that what this is?
While I have a personal tug-of-war with my conscience, Shiloh slips off the sink and bends over to retrieve her purse. I watch her every move, forcing myself not slam her against the wall for round two.
“It’s a good thing,” she says, laying a hand on my shoulder. “You would’ve regretted this.”
“My dick disagrees,” I snort. She has no idea how right she is—only it’s not me who would’ve regretted it. Opening her legs to me would be like opening the gate to hell. Once she let me in, there’d be no way out. We’d both be eternally damned.
Her hand slides off my arm, and I stiffen through her breathy sigh. “You despise me, Cary, and with good reason. This would’ve been a hate fuck. Where would that have left us for the next three years? Trust me, I’m doing you a favor.” Opening the destroyed door, she disappears around the corner, leaving me with more questions than answers.
When I know she’s gone, I can answer truthfully to a silent room.
“I’m not so sure about that.”
* * *
Jealousy. People call it the green-eyed monster, but as I fling open the door to Will’s building, it feels more like a one-eyed snake. Because that’s what brought me here. My dick. It’s what took over my head, clouded my judgment, and drove me across town to a piece of shit office in the middle of the day for no other reason than to check up on her.
I’ve lost my mind.
Honestly, I don’t know why the hell I’m here. I’m swinging from one rationalization to another for doing this. I’m pissed off—mad at myself for losing control and at her for turning me down. Maybe I grabbed the pill bottle she left to blackmail her to come back. Maybe I did it purely out of retribution.
She’s forcing my hand on this. It’s her fault for bringing them into my center.
I scrub my hands down my face a few times, trying to get it together. As I approach Will’s office, I notice the door is slightly ajar and slow my stride. I make it two more steps before recognizing her voice.
“I didn’t expect it to be so emotional. I wasn’t prepared for that.”
Shiloh’s confession stops me in my tracks, and I press my back against the wall. Gripping the doorframe, I lean closer, irritated she’s talking about what happened between us to Will.
“I didn’t say it’d be easy,” Will says, his voice sympathetic. “But it’s going to get easier each time.”
“Will, I felt guilty. I’ve never felt guilty in my life.”
“Well, it’s not meant to be a party. What do you feel guilty about?”
Shiloh just sighs. “I’d better get back. He’ll be mad that I’ve been gone this long. Thanks for the talk—and for being a friend.”
Shit!
I have seconds to hide, otherwise, I’m busted. Creeping backward into the darkened opening of the empty bathroom, I press my back against the inside wall.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
I count the click of her heels as she walks away, waiting until they grow faint and finally disappear before slipping back into the hallway and into his office.
“That was heartwarming.”
Will raises his head, and gives me an unimpressed stare. From his underwhelming reaction to my presence, I have the distinct feeling he’s not surprised to see me. “Adding eavesdropping to your list of offenses, Cary?”
Nice. The best defense is a good offense. I’m impressed.
I curl my fingers along the back of a chair and flash him an eat-shit grin. “What were you two talking about?”
“You know I can’t discuss probation clients with you. Or the details of their cases.”
I chuckle to myself, locking my elbows as my hold on the chair tightens. The movement brings my hips flush against the backrest, pushing the forgotten pill bottle deep into my thigh. I freeze, my reason for being here suddenly not so cut and dry.
The part of me that’s waited for vindication is certain that turning the pills over to Will would violate her probation. That one act would send her packing, getting her out of my center and out of my life for good.
“Why did you really come here, Cary?” Will looks up again while scribbling his signature across a stack of papers.
However, the other part remembers the defeated look in her eyes in that bathroom. I drop my hand to my pocket, letting it rest against the opening before palming the back of my neck instead. “Just in the neighborhood.”
“Bullshit, you’ve hated coming back here ever since your parole ended.” Tossing the pen on his desk, he stands and shoves the papers in a leather briefcase. “I think you need to stop worrying about what’s going on between Shiloh and me and start figuring out what’s going on between you and her. You say you hate her, but I’ve never wasted as much energy on someone I don’t like as much as you do on Shiloh.”
“Are you a parole officer or a shrink?”
“Whatever, man. I’m late for an appointment.” Chuckling, he walks past me and waits for me to follow him before closing and locking the door.
After Will walks away, I stand in the hall like a fucking idiot. The last thing I want to admit to myself is that he’s right, but he makes a valid argument. For as much as I claim to hate her, Shiloh is the first thing on my mind when I wake up, the last thing on my mind before I fall asleep, and the constant thing driving me insane every moment in between.
I feel her in my veins. She’s poisoned my blood again.
Halfway down the hallway, Will stops and turns around. “Hey, Kincaid?”
“Yeah?”
Smirking, he points to the darkened room behind me. “Next time hide in the bathroom the whole time.”
Fifteen
Shiloh
Sighing, I run my hand along the perimeter of the window in the backseat of Malcolm’s limo, dreading the ride almost as much as the destination. Maybe Cary won’t be there. After what happened last Wednesday, I’m hoping to avoid a confrontation.
I’m not going to lie; it wasn’t my proudest moment. I never planned on putting one of Bianca’s pills in my mouth—much less a handful. I’m so much stronger than that. I mean, Jesus, I made it through being in jail, for fuck’s sake, how in the hell could I have been so weak?
Easy. I didn’t plan on being ambushed.
Hearing Kelly’s heartbreaking story was bad enough, but walking in and seeing Cary’s parents put me over the edge. An already thin handle on my emotions snapped when I saw his mother. Then I snapped, and he came after me, doing the last thing in the world I ever expected him to.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think Cary set out to break me today. The boy I walked away from isn’t the one I’ve come back to. Regardless of who he has become, I wanted him. Jesus, I still want him, but giving in to lust would be like sentencing him all over again. As much as I crave him, he’s the last thing I’ll allow myself to have.
It’s been five days since Cary flipped my world upside down in that hallway bathroom, and all I’ve been able to do is replay everything over and over in my head. Unfortunately, he’s acted like it never happened. Like he wasn’t seconds away from taking me right there on that filthy sink.
Know what’s the worst part? I would’ve let him.
After spouting all of that independent girl-power bullshit, I would’ve closed my eyes and allowed him to treat my body like a receptacle. Because, honestly, that’s all I would’ve been to him. I know it and he knows it.
“To the Kincaid Center, Miss West?” Malcolm glances into the rearview mirror, his blank stare reflecting through the open partition. He’s stringently proper with a heavy British accent and impeccable manners that Bianca swoons over.
I flop my head against the back of the seat. “Unfortunately.”
He nods, apparently realizing it’s best not to elaborate.
Smart man. Bianca doesn’t pay him the big bucks just to be another pretty face.
As we weave in and out of traffic, I close my eyes and pretend I’m anywhere else. I hate riding in cars. Not only is the enclosed space starting to fuck with my head, but with no one to talk to, my thoughts are free to flip through my extensive catalog of lifelong bad choices. Some I regret, and some I enjoyed way too much to take back. Unfortunately, when time is all you have, it tends to be your worst enemy. It forces you to question things you have no business questioning.
Like Cary Kincaid.
And his mouth.
Both of which I’ll admit I could get addicted to.
As I stare out the window, the backseat becomes smaller, closing in on me from all sides. I cough and blow out a long breath, hoping it will stop the doors from closing in on me. It doesn’t work. The air thickens, filling my chest and clogging my throat with long extinguished smoke. Burning rubber. The metallic taste of blood that won’t go away no matter how many times I’ve scrubbed my mouth.
I blindly slap for the window button, hoping like hell I can get it down before I dive over the seat and stop the car myself. Finally, I manage to hook my finger around it, and the window releases me from my prison, whipping my hair around my face as I lean out of the car. I gasp for air because sucking down the stifling humidity is better than breathing the air in that deathtrap.
I survey my surroundings. It’s not the usual tourist beach store bonanza, but we’re not cruising through a neighborhood that would make me dive for the door locks either. It’s early, so the unforgiving summer sun isn’t calling beach worshippers out of their homes yet. However, the side streets aren’t deserted, and it’s not like the names on the signs are entirely unfamiliar.
“Malcolm, how far is it from here to the center?”
Not one silver hair moves out of place as he cocks his chin and scratches the side of his head. “Oh, I’d say less than a mile. Don’t worry, I’ll have you there in plenty of time.”
I throw my purse strap across my chest and curl my fingers around the door handle. Bianca would shit a brick if she knew what I was about to do, but I’ll deal with her meltdown after I have mine.
“Pull over and let me out.”
“I’m sorry, pardon?”
“You heard me,” I say with more conviction. “Pull over and let me out. I’m going to walk to work.”
Thankfully, he’s already starting to pull over because even as the words come out of my mouth, I’m starting to question my own sanity.
As if reading my mind, he clicks the master door lock, trapping me inside. “Miss West, I cannot, in good conscience, allow that. This isn’t a desirable part of town, and if I may point out the obvious, ma’am, you don’t blend in here.”
Here’s where shit gets real. I don’t like to be challenged. Ever.
“Do it.”
Nodding obediently, he parks the car on the side of the road.
The sound of the door unlocking pulls a grin from one corner of my mouth, and I slide out of the limo without another word. After walking about twenty feet, I come to a dead stop as he speeds by me in the only mode of transportation I have other than my two feet. Which, by the way, are already forming blisters from trying to balance on uneven pavement in wedge heels.
So now, here I am, hobbling along the streets of Myrtle Beach, cursing myself the entire time because although I thought I recognized the neighborhood while inside the car, it turns out I was wrong.
I have no fucking clue where I am.
Coming to a standstill on a wooded side street, I place a hand on my hip and stare blankly in front of me. Yeah, this was a huge mistake. Swallowing my pride, I reach for my phone as a voice from across an abandoned lot to my right catches my attention.
Two large boys, at least eighteen years old, make their way across the patchy area of grass toward me, their eyes burning into the side of my face.
I’ve never been in a situation where just my existence seemed to wave a red flag in front of a couple of bulls. So, I keep my eyes averted and hope for the best while making a wide circle around them and heading back the way I was going.
“What’s your hurry, baby?”
Turning around, I notice the two boys are behind me. Dangerously close behind me. So close that I’m kicking my own ass for getting out of a perfectly good limo in a shit part of town.
The bigger of the two boys runs his tongue slowly along his silver capped teeth. He’s wearing a white bandana tied around his bald head. I assume it’s some gang affiliation, which does nothing to calm my nerves.
“Hey, you deaf or somethin’? I asked you a question.”
“I heard you the first time, asshole,” I bite out through clenched teeth.
I have no idea what the hell has gotten into me. For the most part, the street is deserted and they could violate me about thirty different ways before help could arrive. However, here I am, spouting off at the mouth and about to take off my earrings like I’ve been beating asses all my life.
Yep. I’m about to die.
It’s no surprise that Kong doesn’t appreciate my badassery.