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 the deadlock. With her back pressed against the wood, 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 her 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.
Steeling myself, I slowly rose to my feet. Inhaled a calming breath, I 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.
Standing in the doorway of my apartment, with his raven black hair all mussed up and disheveled, Noah knocked the breath clean out of my lungs. His dark brown eyes were focused entirely on my face as he ran a hand through his thick black hair.
Clad in faded denim jeans, a red and black plaid shirt unbuttoned and hanging open to reveal a plain white wife beater, I felt my mouth dry up. Noah was here, back in my life, and just like that I was a wreck. My whole body shook at the sight of him.
Feelings I’d forced beneath the surface flooded me, burning my flesh, pushing me towards him. I needed to get closer, the brown of his eyes called to me, and yet I needed to run as fast and as far away as I could. I was powerless – absolutely fucking powerless – just the same as I had been when I was seventeen.
Noah inclined his head in my direction before letting out a heavy sigh.
“Thorn,” he acknowledged in his deep, gravelly voice; eyes locked on mine with an intensity I felt right down to my toes. He called me by his old pet name and I felt like I had been sucker punched directly in the stomach.
My heart fluttered around recklessly as the hairs on the back of my neck stood on edge.
Damn him!
“How dare you,” I whispered. There were probably half a dozen more productive ways to handle this situation, but as usual, my emotions took over, clouding my common sense and I dealt with Noah the same way I always had.
I went bat shit crazy.
And then I attacked.
Somersaulting over the back of our couch, I launched myself at the big bastard in my doorway. “How dare you come in here!”
“Hear me out,” Noah 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.
“Agggghhh.” 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.
My brain had checked out.
I was running solely on emotion now and 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.
“Dammit, stop fucking biting me!”
“Bastard,” I snarled, biting down harder.
Shaking me like a rag-doll, Noah pinned me to the wall by my shoulders, before pulling back quickly – out of harm’s way, I guessed.
“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.”
“I loved you,” I screamed. I was crying hard and ugly, and I was pretty sure my nose was dripping but, but I was out of control. 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.”
Furious with myself for admitting such weakness, I lashed out at him. “Get out of my flat,” I seethed, chest heaving. “Leave me be!”
“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 us 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 from the inside out at an alarming pace.
“I tried that remember?” I screamed, holding onto my hurt, before pushing my hair out of my eyes. Noah had broken me and betrayed me, and he had done it in the worst possible way – bedding my enemy. He had taken my virginity, my heart, my trust and my faith in mankind with him. “And you hung up on me. Now you want me to hear you out? I don’t fucking think so!”
Pain like I had never known existed consumed me, tormenting me, and the image of that redheaded bitch riding my boyfriend almost drove me insane with a toxic concoction of hurt and anger. “Asshole.”
I knew I looked like shit, but I was beyond caring.
I had passed the point of return.
That man had flipped a switch inside of me.
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. It wasn’t what it looked like…you need to hear the truth, Thorn.”
“I don’t need to hear about what I got a front row view of, Noah.” I sneered, feeling less like a twenty-five year old woman and more like a bratty adolescent by the minute.
“There’s no talking to you,” he growled. “You’re right when you’re wrong and you never back the fuck down.”
“Wow, Noah,” I spat, delirious with pain and fury. “It sounds like you’re talking to a mirror.”
Throwing his hands up in the air, Noah hissed loudly. “You know what, Teagan, I was a fucking idiot to think that you might have actually grown up. But no. You’re still the same selfish little brat I used to know.”
“Fuck you!” 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. I needed a moment to breathe and I couldn’t do that with him here. “Keep your distance from me,” I warned him. “I mean it, Noah. You be
tter not still be here when I get of that bathroom.”
“Don’t you dare walk away from me again,” I heard Noah warn seconds before heavy footsteps followed after me. “I fucking loved you, Teagan,” he called out. “And it was real love.” Grabbing the back of my nightdress, he dragged me backwards into his embrace. “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, forcing myself to breathe through my mouth so I didn’t inhale his incredible scent. I could feel his heart hammering against his rock hard chest and it was doing terrible things to my self-control.
“Think about it,” he argued in my ear. “I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a fucking cheat.”
“Don’t bother wasting your words on me because what we had…” I inhaled a shaky breath and spat the words out like I was ridding my body of poison. “What we had, it’s dead and gone.”
“You’re the one who threw it all away,” Noah snarled, losing his patience, tightening his hold on me. “Stop being so goddamn stubborn and just hear me out.”
“No!” 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.” I was losing control of myself. “We’re done,” I hissed. “We never happened.” Rage bubbled up inside of me, erupting like a volcano of heat and anger. “We never met. You don’t know me.”
I needed to get a grip, but every time I tried to grab onto the ledge of something rational the image of Noah and Reese together – their sweat-soaked naked bodies fused together – impaled my mind and I felt like bursting into flames.
“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 when I opened my eyes Noah was gone.
And I was alone with a broken heart and a soul full of regret.
Sinking to the floor, I sat numbly, rocking back and forth, as I tried to piece together what the hell had just happened.
I couldn’t explain why I had behaved the way I did, only that Noah seemed to bring out the worst in me – like I did in him.
Why did I have to behave like that? Dammit, I knew I would never forget the pain and betrayal that man had caused me, but I didn’t need to carry it around with me for the rest of my life. It was poisoning me and I was tired of being angry.
Even though I knew we were toxic to each other, a relationship made in hell, a small part of me wanted to be with him.
An even bigger part wanted to believe him.
But the biggest part of me, the part I chose to listen to, was the bitter voice inside. The voice that warned me Noah Messina had all but ripped me to pieces seven years ago, and to get back in the ring with that man would be emotional suicide.
“I WISH I NEVER MET YOU…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…”
Goddammit, I had been in Teagan’s company for ten damn minutes and already my skin was burning, my heart was fucking hammering in my chest, and I had a hard on that wouldn’t lie down.
I walked away from her – I fucking had to – because if I had stayed, I would’ve spurted the same cruel shit she had thrown at me; except mine wouldn’t have been a bullshit fabrication of the truth, and Teagan and I tearing strips out of each other wasn’t going to fix a damn thing.
Jesus Christ, all I had wanted her to do was shut the hell up for ten seconds and let me speak. All I wanted to do was lay it out there. Have her hear my truth. Make her understand that she had believed a bullshit lie for the best part of a decade.
I knew I’d be better off with a quiet woman; a nice, soft spoken, understanding woman. Hell, even a fucking grown up woman would do. But no, I wanted that little fruitcake. The little nut that never grew up. Thorn had a mouth like a sailor and the heart of a goddamn pit-bull terrier.
Stalking back to the bar, I shoved my way through the crowd, ignoring every come hither gaze from every barely dressed female that approached me.
I couldn’t look at another woman now.
Ordering a whiskey from the bartender, I chucked it back, enjoying the burning sensation in my throat as the alcohol settled in my stomach.
“Don’t bother wasting your words on me because what we had, it’s dead and gone.”
Like hell it was.
Signaling to the bartender for a refill, I dropped a couple of fifty euro bills on the counter before taking the bottle out of his hand and pouring myself another.
“We’re done. We never happened. We never met. You don’t know me…”
I got why Teagan was mad – but it didn’t change the facts. And the facts were she believed a lie.
I was the betrayed one.
I was the fucking innocent one.
Swallowing the contents of my glass, I grabbed the bottle of whiskey from the counter and pushed my way back through the crowd towards the exit.
No fucking way was I going down like this.
Never in my life had I walked away from a challenge, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to start now. Teagan Connolly was a thorn in my fucking side, but I couldn’t walk away from her. She had left a permanent mark on me, and no amount of women, booze or fighting filled the hole she had left inside of me.
I wanted her again and I would have her at any cost.
AS I SHOVED A DRESSER in front of our doorway, my feeble attempt to safeguard our door-less apartment, I was tormented with a feeling in the pit of my stomach that told me that I had done something terribly wrong.
I didn’t have much time to ponder about my feelings though, because seconds after rearranging the dresser, it was shoved out of the way.
“I thought monsters had to be invited in,” I exclaimed when Noah stepped through my doorway with a bottle of whiskey in his hand and a look of determination etched on his face.
Stalking into the lounge, Noah slammed a bottle of Jameson on the coffee table with a loud bang before turning around and glaring at me.
“We’re not done here,” he told me in a low, warning tone, eyes locked on my face, daring me to push him.
“I think we are,” I shot back, red-faced, as I backed into the kitchen and far away from the professional fighter in my apartment. Anger was radiating off Noah in waves and suddenly I wasn’t feeling as brave as before.
“No, Thorn, we’re not.”
With eyes dark and full of bad intentions, Noah took a step forward and I automatically took a step back. I felt a shiver of fear run down my spine. If he touched me again I was fucked. If he touched me, I may as well break my own heart. That’s how toxic he was to me.
That trickle of fear quickly faded when he crouched down and lifted Hope into his arms. “Which room is hers?” he asked me, standing slowly with my best friend snoring loudly, cradled in his arms.
Ignoring the weird fluttering I had in my chest from the sight of Noah taking care of his niece so tenderly, I muttered, “first door on the right,” before busying myself with draining the contents of my wine glass. I quickly refilled it, only to guzzle it down again.
I watched out of the corner of my eye as Noah marched down our small hallway and used his foot to nudge open Hope’s bedroom door before slipping inside.
He returned a moment later, looking calmer than he had when he arrived. His presence was still overwhelming me, but he wasn’t being hostile. In fact, his mood seemed eerily calm and I found myself easing my finger off the mental defensive trigger inside of my brain – the one I kept cocked and ready to strike when threatened.
“I was going to do that,” I garbled, with my lips around my glass. Actually, I had planned to cover her with a blanket because there was no way I could lift Hope by myself. Skinny as she was, Hope had at least four inches on me, and twenty pounds o
f bone weight – but he didn’t need to know that.
His dark eyes traveled past me, looking around briefly, before returning to my face. “It’s done now.”
“You’ve changed,” I blurted out, taking in his beautiful, hard features. He was crueler now. Prison had turned him darker. Meaner. “You’re…different.”
“I didn’t have much of a choice, Thorn,” Noah replied in a flat tone. Wandering over to the coffee table, he retrieved his bottle and put it to his mouth, swallowing deeply. “It was fight or die in there.”
Like always…
“I’m not talking about that, Noah.” Clasping my hands in front of my stomach, I studied the beautiful, cold man standing in my apartment. “You’re different…with me.”
Cocking his brow, Noah seemed to ponder my reply for a moment before nodding his head and taking another deep swig from his bottle. “But you still want me.”
It wasn’t a question. It was a boldfaced statement and one I venomously rejected. “I do not,” I snapped, red-faced and lying through my teeth. “I stopped wanting you a long time ago, Noah,” I added shakily.
“Of course you did,” he surprised me by saying as he walked around aimlessly. “This is a good apartment.” He stopped at the window and took a slug out of his bottle before looking out. “Nice view.”
Oh, so we were doing pleasantries now?
Fine, I could do that too.
“Hope owns the place,” I replied, squeezing the stem of my glass so hard I was surprised it didn’t crack in my hand. Normally, I wasn’t much of a drinker, but with Noah in close proximity, there wasn’t a brewery in the country that could have stocked enough alcohol to keep my frazzled nerves at bay.
“I just rent the spare room,” I heard myself say before swallowing down another gulp. The wine hit the pit of my stomach and created a pooling burning sensation. I felt myself growing lightheaded.
“Does she do that often?” he finally asked. Wiping the corner of his mouth with his thumb, Noah gestured to the coffee table – to where Hope had passed out.
“No she does not make a habit out of getting inebriated and passing out.” Hope was my best friend and I felt incredibly protective of her. Having Noah question her morals irked me. “She’s in a bad place right now,” I found myself explaining. “Don’t be so quick to judge her, Noah – not when you don’t know the facts.”