She was in his head – her words coming back to him in waves and the look on her face when he told her that he was concerned for the very thief who’d put him in this predicament.
He saw on her face as her heart broke for him as he told her of his past. She cared; she wanted to care.
And that was exactly why he never told anyone that story; he didn’t save people, he only destroyed them.
Tristan and Ellie. Sloane and Cyn.
His mind interjected thoughts about his friends and the role he’d played in bringing love into their life.
Dumping shampoo into his hand, he ran the suds through his hair, washing it and any uplifting thoughts away.
Why had he told her?
The question nagged at him. Of course, people had asked him before, especially if they saw his scar. He’d never had a problem ignoring the question before.
Why. Her.
Because he wanted her to see the real him… he wanted her to care… he wanted her to see that he wasn’t as bad as her brother had made him seem.
Those wants were a problem.
If he was wavering at all in his decision to stay away from her, this moment solidified his choice.
He cared far too much for Ana. And because of that, he was doing things that would only lead her to care more for him. And in the end, he would only end up hurting her… ruining her; she deserved so much more than that.
He stepped out of the shower, his brain quickly processing what was necessary to keep his distance. The only thing that was a sure bet was to leave; he needed to get out of that house and stay somewhere else. As long as she was within his reach, he would want her; he would need her.
She’d become his addiction. And he knew all too well that the only way to stop it was to cut himself off.
So, he walked into his room, pulled out a bag and began to throw enough clothes into it to get him through the next few days.
Knock. Knock.
His head jerked towards his door.
Even after all of that, if it was Ana on the other side of the door, he didn’t know how he was going to turn her away.
“Tash,” he said gruffly.
“Do you mind if I come in a second?”
He pulled back the door and let the familiar blonde inside.
“What’s up?”
“I… I wanted to talk to you for a minute,” she replied, looking inquisitively at the bag of clothes sitting on the bench at the end of his bed. “Are you… going somewhere?”
“Yeah, just until Saturday.”
“Oh.” She turned and moved towards the doorway to his studio.
“What did you want to talk about?” He sighed. “For what it’s worth, I promise that I’ve told you everything that I know about Sloane and Sebastian.” He walked past her into his studio, looking for his sweats that he’d left in there earlier.
Tash shook her head. “No, that’s not what I’m here about.” Her voice followed him into the room. “I came because I wanted to talk to you about…” She trailed off as he grabbed the pants off of the floor and he realized what she must have seen. “Ana.”
Her portrait was sitting on his easel, out in the open for anyone who walked in, like Tash, to see.
Shit.
Well, at least it wasn’t Morgan and at least Tash already had an idea of his preoccupation with their other housemate.
“This is beautiful,” she said softly.
“She is beautiful,” he clarified. He stopped, too, to stare at his creation. He’d captured something in her gaze the other night, something that he just couldn’t put a finger on. Yet, whatever it was, warmed him when he looked at it; it made him feel whole and worthy. It made him feel like he was more than what he was.
“Has she seen it?”
Pierce just laughed. “No. No one has. Well, except you now. I was keeping it a secret… for obvious reasons.”
“She looks like she knows something that the rest of us don’t,” Tash observed.
Yes. She knew him.
“Well, I’ve learned that Ana has many secrets,” he responded. “I simply painted one of them.” He paused. “I’m still not quite sure what it is though.”
“She cares about you,” Tash blurted out, turning to face him.
His mouth thinned. “I know. I’m trying to put an end to it.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think, Tash? You of all people should know; you know how I am, how I work. We used to be on the same page.”
“And what if it was the wrong one?” she countered.
“I’m not willing to take that chance – not on her.” And with that, he grabbed a piece of drop-cloth and draped it over the portrait, hiding it from the world, hiding her from himself.
He walked back out of the room, not caring if Tash followed or not.
“Pierce!” she called after him.
He shoved his sweats into the bag, waiting for Tash to reappear after him.
“Tash, what do you want from me? If you care about Ana, if she is your friend, then you should be glad that I’m trying my damnedest to stay away from her,” he said with frustration.
“I do care about her, but I also care about you,” she persisted. “I know that you and I are similar, which is why I can see that how and what she makes you feel is unlike anything you’ve felt before. How you treat her is not how you – or I – normally treat… well… you know.”
“What do you want from me?” he asked again.
“Well, I came up here because I could see that you care about her and I wanted you to know that she cares about you too, but now that I’m here, I want you to stop running.” Tash crossed her arms over her chest.
“You know it’s for the best.”
“For who, Pierce?” She let out a laugh. “If I thought for one second that all you wanted from Ana was one night, then I would be holding the damn door open for you to walk out of here. But I know that’s not the case. Can you stand there and tell me that she isn’t different to you?” She raised her eyebrows at him. “And don’t fucking lie. I’m like the female version of you – I’ll know.”
“No. I can’t.” There was no point in denying it. Plus, it would only prolong this conversation that he desperately wanted to end.
“Then why are you leaving?”
“Tash,” he growled. He couldn’t deal with this right now. First, Ana, then the memories of his past, now Tash. He was going to explode.
“Pierce, you need—”
“Because!” he roared. “It’s because she’s fucking different that I have to stay away. I am who I am and what you know about me barely scratches the surface, but Ana, she knows. She knows what happened to me because I just fucking told her. And if that doesn’t give her enough proof as to why she needs to stay the hell away from me, then maybe she should just talk to her brother – or anyone for that matter.” He yanked the bag off of the bed and stalked towards the door. “Anyone can fucking tell her that I am a giant fucking mistake.”
And with that, he stormed out, trying to ignore Tash’s shocked face as he’d walked by. She could stay in his room for all he cared. He wasn’t coming back.
“Where the hell are you going?”
Pierce cursed softly to himself as Morgan’s voice called down the hall after him.
“I’ll be back for Saturday. I have to take care of a few things,” he replied tightly, turning to face him.
“Shit, Pierce. Look, if this is about earlier, I’m just trying to look out for my sister—”
“I know,” Pierce interrupted him. He was just trying to look after her, too.
“What’s going on?”
“I told you, I have a few things to take care of. I’ll be back on Saturday.” He turned again to try to leave.
“Does Ana know you are leaving?”
He bit into his cheek.
“I’ll take that silence as a no.”
When Morgan didn’t say anything else, he continued down the hall and out the front door.
Once outside, he sucked in a long breath of the cool, crisp air hoping that it would clear out all remaining thoughts of Ana from his head.
Unfortunately, all it did was cause him to realize that she wasn’t just in his head. The reason he couldn’t stop thinking about her was because she was in his heart.
“Hey…” Ana answered her door hesitantly at first until she realized that it was Tash who was on the other side. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, but there was nothing she could do about it now. As long as it wasn’t Morgan who saw – which was unlikely since their fight earlier – she didn’t care.
“Oh, no,” Tash bit her lip and Ana felt the other woman’s sympathy. She stepped back from the doorway, letting Tash inside. “Are you ok?”
“I just… No, I guess, not really,” she replied thickly, walking in front of Tash towards her nightstand to grab another tissue from the almost-empty box.
“He told you what happened to him?” Ana froze at the other woman’s words, her head spinning to stare at her.
“How did you know?”
“I just saw him.”
Ana turned back to the tissue box, grabbing a Kleenex and wondering if she should be angry or jealous or just more upset at that news.
“I didn’t… I mean… He was angry and he practically yelled it at me. That’s why I know.”
“Do you…” she trailed off.
Tash shook her head fervently. “No. It was never like that between us. Honestly, I don’t know that he’s told anyone what he must have told you. I mean, even Morgan doesn’t know based on the comments he’s made to me.”
“Oh…” She felt a little better about it now, but at the same time, a little worse.
To have kept all of that inside, to himself, thinking that no one would care enough to… care…
“I want to help him,” she whispered. “But he just stormed off. I don’t know if I should go try to talk to him. I’m just a mess right now and I don’t want him to see that. I want him to know that I’m there for him because I care, not because I pity him.” She wiped her eyes and turned her gaze back to Tash. “How do I even make that distinction?”
Tash sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. “I… I don’t know, Ana. And I don’t know that I should be involved in what’s going on between the two of you, but I do know that you are both my friends and I don’t want to see either of you hurt, which is why I went to talk to him and it’s why I’m here now.”
“What do you mean?” Her brow furrowed in confusion.
Tash got up from her perch and came to stand in front of her, her hands on Ana’s shoulders.
“He’s gone, Ana. Until Saturday, he said. But, based on what he said to me and the way he stormed out of here, I figured he wasn’t planning on stopping to inform you. And after our conversation earlier, I didn’t want you to find out on your own.”
Ana felt like her world had been rocked again. As if the news of Pierce’s past hadn’t shaken her enough, she felt like the wind had been knocked out of her again.
“Wh… What…” she mumbled incoherently, her senses beginning to fail her.
“Sit.” Tash’s stern voice broke through her daze as she pushed on Ana’s shoulders, forcing her to sit on the bed.
“Why…” Her head moved side to side, wondering if this was really happening.
Maybe she’d pushed too far, demanding that he tell her about his past. Maybe that and the other night was too much. Maybe she was too much and not enough all at the same time.
“Ana, stop.” Tash shook her a little and her eyes tried to focus on her friend’s concerned face. “What did I tell you? I told you he would probably do something stupid.”
She licked her lips and nodded.
“What if I pushed him away? Because I asked about his past…”
Tash chuckled. “Ana, trust me, this has nothing to do with anything that you did. He is running from himself and he’s a damn idiot – which is what I told him.”
“Maybe it’s for the best. This probably would have been a mistake anyway,” she replied numbly.
Tash sat next to her and put an arm around her shoulder. “Well, I can’t say one way or another, but what I can say is that I know men. I especially know the type of man that Pierce was and I know that that’s not the type of man he is around you. He’ll be back, Ana. The way he looks at you… I don’t think the devil himself could keep him away.”
Chapter 22
Ana took a deep breath, staring at herself in the mirror. She struggled to remember the last time she’d worn a dress – it had been that long. Tash had stopped in earlier to help her put a few curls into her hair, nothing too fancy, and to help her with her make-up. She personally thought that the red lip was too much, but Tash had insisted.
Now, with the dress on, she had to admit that it was the right move.
Over the past two days, her emotions had vacillated between that of resignation and determination – to either resign herself to the fact that this was the end of whatever was between her and Pierce, that wanting her wasn’t enough to escape his past, or to remain determined to fight for a desire that she’d never experienced before, one that it seemed like he hadn’t either. Without him here to sway her in either direction, she’d fought back and forth with herself over what she wanted to do.
Back and forth she’d gone like the pendulum of a clock, ticking down until the moment she would have to see him again and react one way or another.
Tash’s words kept returning to her – ‘I don’t think the devil himself could keep him away.’
Especially not when she looked like this.
The confidence of the thought surprised her; she hadn’t felt this sexy since, well, probably since the day that she’d gone to surprise Shane. She grimaced, realizing that it had taken her three years to get back to the point where she felt moderately attractive in her own skin.
The dress fit like a glove. The black silk with the red floral lace was eye-catching and the neckline combined with the single sleeve made the style edgy.
She took another deep breath.
Time was up.
And she knew what she wanted.
She wanted Pierce. She didn’t care if it was just for one night and she didn’t care how it might break her or her heart when it was all said and done. She wanted him and the part of her that she couldn’t silence told her that he wanted her too.
Maybe avoiding her altogether helped him to avoid his feelings, but there was one thing that distance doesn’t help: desire. And the reason that she knew that was because in spite of all the pain she’d felt over the past forty-eight hours, her desire for him had only grown stronger. Her dreams… the ache inside of her… had only become more prevalent.
She opened her door to be greeted by the sight of her brother and Tash talking in the hallway as Tash held onto the bannister to adjust her shoe.
Her gaze clashed with her twin’s – they still hadn’t spoken since their fight the other day. Maybe because they were both stubborn and demanding. Maybe because everyone was a little on edge about what was going to happen tonight and rehashing personal problems would only add to her distractions.
No, Morgan would have to wait.
Tash looked up at her. “Wow, Ana! You look fab!” she exclaimed, walking over and embracing her as soon as her shoe-strap was fixed.
Of course, Tash looked great, too. She’d ended up choosing the navy dress that Ana had found originally. For some reason, she pictured Tash as wanting something a little flashier, but that might have been remnants of the old Tash peeking through; this Tash preferred to blend in a little more – and Ana knew that feeling better than anyone.
“Thanks, you too,” she replied softly, hugging Tash back.
“Ana,” Morgan addressed her as Tash pulled back.
She just nodded at him and turned towards the stairs.
“Everyone else is downstairs,” he continued.
Her step faltered for a moment, knowing that that meant
Pierce was back; he was here.
He was hers. At least for tonight.
He stood in stony silence resting his back against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest while he waited for the rest of their group to come downstairs. Tony and Gino stood on the opposite side of the hallway, in quiet conversation with each other.
Pierce couldn’t help himself from glaring at Tony whenever he glanced his way.
The man hadn’t even done anything and he wanted to strangle him.
He clenched his jaw, wondering if the past two days in self-imposed solitude had helped at all.
Their heads all turned simultaneously as Ana, Morgan, and Tash came down the stairs.
Pierce felt like he’d been stabbed again – searing pain shot inside his gut just seeing Ana.
And he realized that those two days had done jack shit to get her off his mind and out of his blood.
She looked remarkable and far too fucking seductive. Christ, that dress was molded to her and the lace details just gave enough of an illusion to what was underneath that had his heart pumping furiously.
And it looked like he wasn’t the only one who thought that. His fist flexed as Tony immediately approached her when she got to the bottom of the stairs. He didn’t need to hear what that handsome fucker was saying to her to know that he didn’t like it.
He also didn’t need to meet Morgan’s eyes to know that they were on him, watching and waiting for how he reacted to his sister.
He tried to stroll casually over to her and Tony, but the possessiveness he felt made that impossible.
“You look beautiful tonight, Ana.” He heard Tony’s smoothly accented voice compliment her; the words set his body on fire.
“Aren’t you fucking cold?” The edge in his tone was unmistakable. He didn’t look at Tony, his eyes focused solely on Ana as her gaze turned to his in shock and surprise at his words – words that were reminiscent of the night that they met.
“Seriously?” she scoffed, the barest flicker of hurt in her eyes. “I’m perfectly fine, thank you. Do you have a problem with my dress?”
Fuck. He wanted to tell her that she was the most exquisite thing he’d ever seen, but he couldn’t and because he couldn’t, the next best thing in his mind to get her attention off of Tony was to be an ass.
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