by Harper Sloan
“I don’t even know what to say to that.”
“So don’t say anything,” he says with sadness.
“I wish you could see yourself how I see you. Or maybe if you would let me in, open up to me, I would understand a little better why you continue to break my heart. At this point, Mad, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to put it back together again.”
His eyes darken and his lips part when he sucks in a deep breath.
He steps out shortly after to make some calls. I don’t ask. I just curl up into the covers and pray that sleep takes me away from the harshness of reality.
CHAPTER 12
Maddox
One night. I spend one night between her thighs and suddenly my walls are crumbling down. Mentally, I’m frantically trying to repair their damage. Attempting to reinforce them against the tempting allure of her love. It would be so easy to fall at her feet and beg her for everything she’s ever offered me. I want to; God, I want to. But right now, what’s important is getting her the hell out of here and doing what I need to do to fix whatever is going on in her pretty head. I have no doubt that she is suffering greatly at his loss, but now, after hearing how she grew up, I fear that her issues might go deeper.
Regardless of what is going on around us, I feel unsettled with the hope that’s building within. The hope that maybe, just maybe, it’s okay to let her in. I don’t know what to do with that feeling. I’ve spent so long refusing to believe in it that it’s terrifying.
I woke up before the sun and started making plans and getting the ball rolling. I rented us a place about an hour from home—a cabin that one of our contacts owns. He is going to be overseas for the next couple of months and needs someone to keep an eye on his place. In reality, I could have just as easily passed this job to someone more local to him, but this is just what Emmy needs. Somewhere neutral. Not back home, where our friends care too much to give her the time she needs, and damn sure not in this hellhole I found her in.
I take a moment after returning to our room to watch her sleep. She doesn’t look sad when she’s sleeping. I hate the part I’ve played in her sadness. This time away—together—will be good for us. If I really am going to forget everything that’s been integrated into my life since birth, then I need to make sure she can handle this baggage she is so willing to help me carry.
If there really is a future with us, then this is the time to find out.
Letting her sleep, I go about cleaning up the mess in the room and carry the few belongings we had with us down to my Charger before settling into the chair in the corner and watching my angel. I sit there in the shadows of the room and let myself feel, something I rarely do and never do when someone can see me. I let the future that could be us play out in my mind, feeling that flicker of hope grow a little larger when I can’t see anything but her love for me . . . and mine for her.
* * *
We’ve been on the road for a few hours now and she remains silent. I know she’s still fuming that I followed through with my promise that she wouldn’t be going back to Syn. We went by her hotel room, and as she stood pissed in the middle of the room, I packed her belongings into her suitcases. Five minutes later, we were back in the car and on our way to Georgia.
I keep my mouth shut. There really isn’t anything for me to gain by allowing her to pick a fight. She wants to feel like she’s in control of her life, and by me swooping in and taking over, she’s free-falling. It’s not that I’m trying to do that. I just want to make sure she’s where she belongs and not dancing for a room full of assholes while being at the hands of that motherfucker . . . Now that is not where she belongs.
One day, maybe she will see where I’m coming from, but if I have to get nothing but her anger in return for her safety, then I’m okay with that.
“Where are we going, Mad?” she whispers hoarsely.
“Not home, so stop worrying about it. We’re going to a cabin in Pine Hills. It’s sitting on fifty acres in the middle of nowhere. You need time, I get that, but you also need help getting over everything. So when you’re ready, we go home—but not until you’re ready.”
She’s quiet for so long that I look over at her. Her mouth is hanging slack, her eyes bugged out in shock.
“I need time? I need to get over everything? Well, isn’t that magnanimous of you, Maddox Locke.” She laughs, the sound hitting my ears and making me cringe. “Maybe while we’re there, we can find a mirror for you to look in and repeat that shit you just shoveled at my feet to yourself. Hello? Pot, meet kettle.”
“This isn’t about me, Emmy.”
“Oh, you stupid, stupid man. It’s always been about you.”
I don’t let her see it, but her words hit home. She couldn’t have delivered a more direct shot if she’d tried. Sure, she doesn’t know what she just did. She doesn’t know because you never let her in, you idiot. My mother’s words come back to me like a tsunami. The pain of always being her stupid little boy tries to take root, but I brush it aside. Emmy is nothing like my mother, and even as careless as her words are, she’s talking out her hurt right now.
“Emersyn,” I start. “Don’t let my desire to protect you be confused as stupidity. It has never been about me. I don’t keep myself from you because I think it’s some fun goddamn game.” I pause, needing a second to swallow the lump in my throat. I’m trying so hard to keep my heart from breaking free from my body. The emotions I’ve hidden for so long are rattling the cages, just waiting for that moment to pounce, and it terrifies me to think of what will be left of me if they get out. “I’ve been told my whole life that I was the worst kinds of evil. That my soul is as black as my eyes and that everything and everyone I touch will wilt at my hands. So, Emmy, this,” I stress, pointing between us, “THIS has never, not once, been about me.”
The rest of the ride is uncomfortable at best. I never intended to tell her that much. I struggle during every mile with what I could say to take that verbal vomit and shovel it back in. She knows more with just those few sentences than anyone else in my life.
And I’m terrified to think about what she must think of me now. The man she has loved unconditionally for years isn’t who she thinks he is. I’m sure she regrets every second of it now. I’m not sure what unsettles me more—the thought that she might regret giving her love or that she might be afraid of the truth of me.
Or worse . . . that she’ll take that love away and never give it back.
* * *
When we get to Devon’s cabin, I leave her to her exploring. She retreats to one of the back bedrooms and shuts the door softly behind her. I give her that play, knowing that she’s processing my words.
I make sure that everything is stocked and we’ll be set for the unforeseeable future. When that’s done, I’m left with nothing left to do. The television holds no appeal. I call and check in with Axel then settle on the couch. Knowing that I have some time alone, I take a second to rub the pained muscles in my thighs. I need to get my prosthetic off before I do more damage than necessary to my stump. It’s been a long few weeks and I’ve felt like this was coming for a while now. Usually when the skin gets too irritated for me to wear the prosthetic, I work from home, giving the skin the rest it needs and, sometimes, the sores time to heal. Keeping my weight off it for a while does the trick but never fixes the issue.
I’ve come to live with this part of my future. I hate every moment of it, but it’s my reality.
“What’s wrong with your leg?”
Her question startles me. I was so lost in my own head that I didn’t even hear her coming into the room.
I immediately pull my hand off my leg. “Nothing.”
“Is that how this is going to be now? Okay. Why don’t I tell you what I think is wrong with your leg? I think this might be a little more forthcoming than waiting for you to snap the hell out of it and admit that I’m standing right in front of you, wanting to help carry your fucking burdens.”
I narrow my eyes and do my
best to tell her to shut the hell up without words. The feeling of helplessness, an emotion I haven’t felt in years, floods my system.
“Nothing to say, Maddox? Not that I should be surprised.”
“Emersyn, shut your mouth.”
“No!” she screams. “I will not shut my mouth! I’m sick of shutting my mouth. Guess what, big boy? This poor little naïve girl sees you. I see through the bullshit you put up as a shield. I see through the anger you push on others to keep them at arm’s length. I see past it all. The pain that is deep within you. The shame, fear, and helplessness. I see you!” She finishes, screaming her words at me with so much force that her skin is flushed and her breathing is accelerated. “I see you,” she whispers. “All of you.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” I dismiss her wrath and try to ignore the shitstorm that’s coming, hoping she gives it up and goes back to the room.
“I know exactly what I’m talking about. I know because my soul recognizes its mate. Its kindred spirit. We both have our pain, Maddox. We both have the shame of our past and the fear it holds on the future. The only difference is you let that pain and fear rule your heart. And the difference in me is that I am willing to risk it all day in and day out for just a second of your love.”
She’s right. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
“Tell me why you were massaging your leg, Maddox,” she implores.
I can tell by her tone that she knows. I have no idea how since I’ve been very careful over the years to keep my . . . disability . . . hidden from everyone but the guys.
“How do you know?” I sigh.
“Tell. Me. What is wrong, Maddox.” She lifts her arms and plants her hands on her hips. Her stance is screaming that she is unwilling to fold. She won’t give this up until she gets whatever she is after.
“Stop pressing this, Em!” I bellow, my voice loud enough to shake the windows in their frames.
“What is bothering your leg, Mad?!” she yells back, just as pissed with me as I am with her for not giving this up.
“Fuck!” I shout. I don’t take my eyes off hers as I jerk my jeans up, yank my stocking down, and remove my leg. I replace the shame I feel for having her see my crippled body with anger. With my prosthetic in my hand, I toss it in her direction and hold her eyes as it lands right next to her feet. “Is that what you wanted, Emersyn? You want to see just how broken I am? It isn’t enough to know that my fucking head is a mess. You want to see just how badly my body is ruined too?”
We hold each other’s glare—both unwilling to be the first one to break. The rage bubbling inside me is becoming too much to bear. With a roar, I lean forward and flip the coffee table over. The books, so perfectly placed on its surface, go flying, and right before the table crashes with a loud boom through the still cabin, I lose my balance. The force I used to push forward on the couch and the momentum of my rage sends me falling right behind it to the floor.
She doesn’t even flinch. Her stance doesn’t change and her ice-cold fury never leaves its hold on my eyes.
“Do you feel better now?” she grinds out. “Does it feel better to throw things and act like a child? Maybe while you’re down there, you can kick and scream and beg me for a toy before we leave the store next time? Hmm?”
“Shut up, Emersyn.” My weak voice lacks conviction as I let the humiliation and shame of her seeing me like this fall over me.
“I’m not going to shut up! How can you be so foolish? You want to know how long I’ve known you’re an amputee? Three years. For three years, I’ve known, and even through it all, I never let it change how I saw you. I never told anyone because that isn’t my place, but I’ll tell you this much, Maddox. Your pride is misplaced in this situation. I don’t look at you and see someone broken,” she says, echoing my earlier self-loathing like a smack in the face before delivering home her final blow. “I have admired you for everything you’ve overcome and continue to overcome. I see you as perfect, and in my eyes, this makes you honorable, brave, and heroic. It doesn’t lessen you as a person. It’s just another one of the things I’ve loved about you since the very beginning.”
She leaves me on the floor. My leg is still lying carelessly a few feet away, where I threw it in the middle of my tantrum.
The shock of her words hits my system and my breath stills in my throat. The power behind each word she just put out there smacks into my chest and shakes me to my very core.
All the while, that fucking flame of hope gets a little brighter.
CHAPTER 13
Emmy
Between the bullshit he’s convinced makes him unworthy of my heart, the desire that is even larger now that we know what it feels like to allow it to break free, and the personal battles we’re both dealing with, the last week has been tense at best.
I know enough from the bits and pieces he’s told me that his hurt runs deep. Probably even deeper any one person should ever feel to get to that level of self-hatred. Until he lets me in, there really isn’t anything I can do about it though, so I leave him to his thoughts and try to keep the distance from making me bitter.
We co-exist. He’s kept himself closed off and I’ve been working towards forgiving myself for the events that led up to Coop’s death. I know now that I was letting my grief over losing him take hold. I shouldn’t have run from my life just because of the things I was feeling. Even if I hadn’t frozen at that moment, someone still would have been hurt. It will never take the pain away from losing him, but I no longer blame myself. He wanted me to live. He will always hold a special place in my heart and I’ll do my best to live by his motto—after all, you only live once.
I laugh as I think about all the times he would scream, ”YOLO!” at the top of his lungs. It didn’t matter where we were, he was going to do what made him happy and live for the moment—something I’ve vowed to do myself over the last week.
“What’s so funny?” Maddox grumbles when I walk past him. He has taken it upon himself to get up at the ass crack of dawn the last few days and have breakfast ready by the time I roll out of bed. It’s one of the rare times he allows himself to be in the same room I’m in.
“Just thinking about Coop,” I reply with a smile. “His outlook on life and how I’m going to do better to honor his memory by living life like him.”
I jump when the pan he was cleaning slams down against the marble countertop. Turning from where I was fixing my plate, I find him standing just a breath from me. Close enough that it wouldn’t take much for me to take his thick bottom lip and give him a smart bite.
“What the fuck?” he fumes.
“What the fuck what?” I snap back with confusion. I cock my head and wait for him to elaborate over his newest tantrum. My mind is still thinking about those lips, so it takes me a second too late to catch where he’s going with this.
“So you’re just going to spread those legs for anyone that walks by? Become what? A little whore?”
“Excuse me?” I gasp.
“Coop believed in one thing and that was having a good time.” His eyes go from dark brown to black in seconds.
I watch the stages of pure rage take over his features, and even though I’m becoming more pissed by the each passing moment of his silent, irate bullshit, I can’t help but think how perfectly handsome he looks when he’s angry.
“One thing he lived for was pussy. He didn’t give a fuck about where it came from as long as it ended up riding his dick. So let me clarify—you will not become a slut like Coop was.”
My hand moves without permission, clapping against his cheek and leaving not only an instant red mark, but also needle pricks shooting up my arm.
“How fucking dare you speak about him that way. Do not let your misplaced anger turn his memory to shit. I woke up this morning determined to be happy—to live in the moment. And right now, in this moment, I want to kick your fucking ass. YOLO, you jerk.”
I take deep pulls of oxygen, trying desperately to tam
e the fire that wants to consume my body. I’ve never been a violent person, but right now, all I can see is red.
His head is still turned to the side; the bright red mark against his tan skin taunts me. When his head slowly and methodically turns back to glare at me, I give him back as good as he gives.
I’ve seen him mad before. Hell, he’s Maddox Locke; he’s mad ninety percent of the time. But this—this rage directed towards me—is something I have never witnessed before. Knowing that he would never hurt me physically helps me stand strong and hold my own. He deserved that and I’m not backing the hell down.
Expecting a verbal lashing, I’m surprised when his rough hands grab my head and pull me towards him. My gasp works in his favor, and in just seconds, we’re tearing the clothes from each other’s bodies. Our anger fuels the desire—the craving for each other. Our teeth clash as we fight for dominance with our lips. His hands finish pulling my shorts from my body and then lift my hands from his belt before bringing them behind my back. In one second, I go from battling for control to giving it up completely.
With his large hand holding my wrists together behind my back, he pulls back for a second to look me in the eyes. His anger hasn’t dissipated in the least. His eyes are pitch black and his skin is even more flushed than it was before. My handprint still bright against his cheek reminds me just what set this in motion.
“I hate you,” I snap, for the first time wishing that I were capable of even an ounce of hate. Then it would be so much easier to move on.
He lets my wrists go, but my freedom is short-lived. He grabs me around the waist and flips my position. My bare chest hits the cold, unbending counter. My panties are ripped from my body in one swift snap. Then he reaches back up with his hands and grabs my arms, pulling until he has my wrists once again hostage at the small of my back.