Dangerous (Wicked Hearts Book 2)

by Sara Cate

  He stops talking and gazes into my eyes, my heart picking up speed and feeling warmer with the intensity of his stare. Just when I think he’s about to walk out of the room with me, he pulls his hand away.

  “You should be as mad as me. You meant nothing to her. She only hired you so I’d have someone to fuck when I came home.”

  Blood drains from my face. The room erupts in chaos. Everything happens so fast, and yet, it all moves around me in slow motion. A fist comes flying across my vision, landing square on Murph’s jaw, knocking him back into the arms of his friends, the two guys who carry him away while he fights back, trying to get free of their hold and get in a punch of his own.

  Ryder’s arms are around my waist, pulling me to the kitchen. Tia’s there. She’s wiping something from my face, and it takes me a minute before I realize I’m crying. Sobbing. Moisture leaks down my cheeks and my chest is heaving in sobs.

  The bourbon must have kicked in because my vision is blurry, and it’s increasingly difficult to stand straight on my feet.

  Somehow all I really want is to get away from the kitchen and go to him. I want to calm him, tell him what’s on my mind, how angry I am. But Tia and Ryder won’t let me leave. They’re practically pouring water down my throat and wiping my face with a cold, wet washcloth.

  The crowd is still lingering in the living room as Tia escorts me to my room, and I can’t focus on anyone or anything. All I can feel are tears and bourbon.

  But before we leave the room, my sight catches on a face in the crowd, and although my brain processes who it is, my body refuses to react.

  Staring at me with a sly, all-knowing smirk on his face, Hugo watches me, and just when I realize I should scream or run, everything goes black.

  Murph

  When I peel my eyes open it feels like someone cracked me over the top of the head with a hammer. It’s still dark outside, and the house is silent. The events of the night replay in my head. Everything I said feels like another swift punch to the jaw.

  I deserved it, and worse. Not the stuff about Hazel. They deserved to hear that.

  What I said to Savannah was beyond fucked up, on top of being just plain wrong.

  I’m suddenly desperate to find her. Even if it’s just to look at her, know she’s okay.

  The house is dark and quiet as I tiptoe down the hall. Her door is closed, and I hesitate with my hand over the knob. If this were a week ago, I would walk right in. But now…

  She whimpers behind the door. Then a shriek.

  I burst through the door and find her lying in nothing but one of my T-shirts and her underwear. She’s thrashing, jerking and crying, her face pressed into the pillow in anguish.

  Moving in, I almost reach her bed, ready to drape my body on top of hers, hoping it will scare away whatever is holding her under in her nightmare when a hand yanks me back my the collar of my shirt, tearing me out of the room. I stumble backwards before I meet Ryder’s seething expression.

  “Think again, fucker,” he growls at me.

  “Let me go, Ryder.”

  “You must be insane. Do you have any idea how bad you humiliated her tonight? She passed out, Murph! Dead as a doornail after you basically called her out for being your whore in front of the whole party.” He’s whisper-shouting in my face, pointing a harsh finger at my chest.

  “I remember.” My throat feels like I swallowed nails.

  “Then get the fuck out of here. Do her a goddamn favor and leave her alone.”

  “I can’t.” And it’s the fucking truth. A harsh truth. I can’t walk away, like the line between us only allows me to be this far.

  “You’re still drunk.” He’s watching my face like he’s waiting for me to give in. I won’t.

  “Maybe so, but I’m not leaving her.”

  This time he lets me pull away and move toward her door. But not before he whispers, “You ruined Hazel’s party.” It’s not meant to hurt me, I can tell. There’s guilt in his voice, like we both fucked this up for her. We still are.

  I turn back to him. “It wouldn’t be a Hazel Whitaker party without someone making a scene.”

  He doesn’t respond as I disappear into Savannah’s room. She’s calmer now, but still asleep and still seized up in pain.

  As I lean down, I take in the beautiful scent of her hair, floating around her face like a cloud. But right now it’s stuck to her forehead in her cold sweat. Pulling up her blanket, I squeeze into the bed next to her. The second my weight hits the bed, she jerks her head back and nearly screams before she recognizes me.

  “Murph?” she gasps.

  I pull her face to mine as she lets out a sob. Jerking away, she doesn’t waste any time before she’s swinging at me, slamming her fists into my body which I take. I deserve it.

  “You humiliated me,” she cries. Tears are spilling out of her eyes, catching the gleam from the moon out the window. “You called me a whore. I’m nothing to you. Just trash. You just use me because you can’t face your own shit.” Her voice is a strangled wheeze as she rails against my body, each hit coming down harder and harder.

  If Ryder is listening from the hallway, I bet he’s really pleased to be hearing this.

  Finally, when her swings slow down, I grab her arms and wrap her up against my body. She thrashes, pulling away, but I can’t let her go. I have to make her understand how sorry I am.

  “If you have something to say, then fucking say it, Murph.”

  “I’m sorry.” I plant a kiss on her face as she watches me, her tears wet against my lips. Then, she yanks away, pushing me to the floor.

  “Fuck. You,” she spits at me. “I hate that phrase. ‘I’m sorry’ means nothing, Murph. Nothing. You think that makes it right?”

  “I’m trying to apologize,” I yell from the floor.

  “But it doesn’t mean anything. If you want to make it right, then talk to me. Tell me why you said that. Tell me I mean something to you. Tell me you were wrong or that I’m not just someone for you to fuck when your feelings are hurt.”

  “Savannah,” I bark as I stand, but she’s got me under her thumb now, and she’s not letting me get out that easy. She stands there in her underwear, waiting for me to say something. But the words are all stuck. “I told you. I don’t know what this is between us, but I don’t want to hurt you. I feel terrible for what I said. I’m not good with words.”

  “Well you seemed great with them earlier tonight.” Another tear streaks down her face taking the black makeup from her eyes with it. My heart is crushed in my chest.

  “Of course that’s not fucking true. I was drunk. I fucked up.”

  She lets out a huff, but her chest shakes on her next inhale, and I can see her caving. My arms ache with the need to hold her.

  “I don’t want sex. I just want to hold you.”

  Another long exhale escapes her mouth as she kneels on the bed between us, and I gather her up in my arms. She leans into my chest as I pull her down to the bed, stroking her hair back as I kiss her forehead.

  She doesn’t kiss me back, and her arms don’t hold me as tight as they used to. This thing between us feels heavier than ever. For the first time ever, we do actually sleep instead of have sex, and it’s nice, but neither of us feel much better when we wake up.

  Hugo wasn’t really there. I just keep telling myself that. I drank too much. I was hysterical and seeing things that weren’t there.

  Still, he lurks behind my eyes while I try to sleep, holding me down under the water.

  When I wake up, Murph is gone. Part of me likes the idea of staying in bed, sleeping away this ache, and trying to forget the whole thing, but Ruby needs my help. Of course, she wants to clean up after the party herself instead of hiring someone to do it. I wish she would just relax for once.

  Murph isn’t there when I walk out to the living room. I look for him in the garage and on the patio, but he’s nowhere to be found.

  “He went to the shop,” Ryder says when he sees me looking. His e
xpression is cautious, like he’s worried I might break at any moment.

  Instead of moping about it, I just busy myself with the clean-up. For most of the morning, we’re mopping, taking out trash, and organizing things back into storage. We still have so much dessert leftover from the party. I figure I can take it to Murph’s friends.

  “Lucy, you want to go for a ride with me?” She smiles up at me from the couch where she’s been sitting all day with Ryder’s tablet. We could both use a break from the house. And I need to get out of my head.

  All morning, I couldn’t stop replaying the fight from last night and Murph’s words from the party.

  She kept you around so I’d have someone to fuck when I came home.

  I’ve never been so angry at someone before. It was different with Hugo. I wasn’t angry at him. I hated him and feared him. It’s different. I care about Murph, and I was hurt, so the anger I felt when he crawled into my bed came from somewhere deep, where the pain was tucked away.

  But he said he was sorry, and I meant it when I told him I hate those two words. How many times did Hugo crawl into bed, whispering his apologies? Not once did he ever mean it or deserve it. Not once.

  Hearing Murph say it made my skin crawl. I wanted him to be sorry. I believed he was, but I’m tired of empty words. I want rich words. Words from love or hate or grief. Anything as long as they’re real.

  “Thanks for taking her,” Ryder calls from the garage. He’s been rearranging out there all morning, and I assume he’ll be busy at it all day. He looks like he needs a distraction as much as I do.

  When Lucy and I get to the shop, she helps me carry in the food, cakes and tiny creme brûlée cups covered in foil. As she enters the shop, she wears a mile-long smile. Murph is busy with a customer, leaning over an old man’s arm. When he glances up, he gives us a genuine smile. When his eyes meet mine, they’re soft and apologetic, a far cry from the brooding stern man I met the first time I walked in here.

  It’s not the same as rich words, but it does something to melt the bitterness still wrapped around my heart.

  To be totally honest, I mostly brought Lucy because I wasn’t sure I could be alone with him yet. I need a buffer, someone to lighten the mood or else I was afraid I’d end up throwing punches again.

  Lucy and I take the cakes to the back, leaving them for Logan when he comes in later. Murph usually works the daytime shifts, I’ve noticed, and I’m glad. I don’t know if I can face his friends just yet. I just want the humiliation from last night to wear off so we can go back to the way things were...before everything changes again in two weeks.

  After a few moments, Murph comes in the back and picks up Lucy, who’s looking around like she’s in the coolest place on earth.

  “Thanks for bringing them by,” he says to both of us without looking me in the eye.

  I want to forgive him. So bad. But something about it still hurts.

  “Hey, little Lucy. There’s a big chair out front where you can watch for people to come in. If anyone walks in, you call for me, okay?”

  She nods with a big smile.

  “Here,” he says, grabbing a sketchpad from his desk and handing it to her with a set of pens. “Draw me something.”

  She’s gone, rushing up front and clearly excited to have some purpose at his shop.

  “That’ll bring in the business,” I say with a laugh, but his light smile for Lucy is gone. He’s watching me with so much remorse in his eyes, I can’t even look at him.

  What if his midnight apology was from the liquor too? What if he’s not sorry and meant what he said?

  But before I can say another word, he takes my hand and pulls me to his body. I rest against the hard wall of his chest as he buries his face in my neck, his hands sliding in my hair and around my waist.

  He doesn’t speak. Once again, he has no words, but I don’t want to hear them anyway. I just want to forget it happened. I want to forget all of our problems and go back to before that night in his room when I was nothing more than the girl who kept his bed warm. Right now, I would settle for that.

  My anger subsides as he breathes into my hair.

  It’s like he wants to talk, but never does. Maybe he wants to say sorry again but decides not to. Maybe he’s trying to say it with the hug.

  And as much as my anger subsides, my anxiety only grows.

  Two weeks ago, my decision was easy. Sell the shop. Run away.

  A week ago, my decision was easier. Keep the shop. Stay with Murph.

  But now...everything is hazy, and I have no idea what I’m going to do.

  The room is dark and silent as she grinds her hips against me. When Savannah climbed into my bed tonight, I was surprised. I was sure it would take weeks for her to come back to my bed, but we don’t have weeks. There is only one and a half before they read the will, which could mark the end of something or the beginning of something else.

  I did everything I could to make her feel how sorry I was. She asked me why I said it, and I had no answer to that.

  I mean, I know why I said it. I was bitter. Stupid. Drunk. Jealous.

  A winning combination.

  But it didn’t feel like a good enough answer to give her, so I kept my mouth shut.

  She moans as she curls her hips again, pushing me deeper. I grab her hip and drive into her again, watching her head hang back and her eyes fall closed.

  “Do it again,” she whispers, and I do. As she picks up speed, panting and clutching my chest for dear life, I wish she’d look at me. I could count on one hand how many times she’s looked in my eyes since the party. That intense night in the garage, when she made me look at her as I came, was the last perfect moment before I ruined it. Now, I want it back.

  “Look at me,” I growl, but she doesn’t. She only picks up speed, moaning louder until I have to clamp my hand over her mouth to keep her from waking the others.

  “Harder, Murph,” she gasps. I meet her thrusts with my own until she’s biting her lip to keep from screaming. I don’t take my eyes off of her while I come, but she won’t even open hers.

  Even after she crawls off of me, she lays with her back to me, and I wrap her up in my arms. My lips rest against her shoulder. I wish she’d turn around.

  I can’t sleep like this, with so much goddamn uncertainty.

  Then, I hear her sniffle, and I know she’s crying.

  “That night, before the party, you asked me what I thought this was.” She whispers into the dark. “What is this, Murph?”

  After a long silence from me, when I take too long trying to find the answer, she turns over and stares at me. “It’s just sex,” she says. “That’s all it was ever supposed to be. Just sex to avoid how much everything hurts. I’m not mad about that. When all of this is over, we won’t be at this house anymore. You’ll go home, and maybe I’ll stay on Wickett, maybe not. But we won’t see each other every day, and maybe I’ll come over for a quickie, but that’s it. Let’s not complicate things anymore, and I won’t pressure you to say anything you don’t want to say.”

  I stare at her, stunned as she leans up and presses her lips to mine. Then she rolls over and falls asleep.

  It takes me a while to decide that she said that because that’s what she thinks I want to hear. Maybe it was what I wanted to hear two weeks ago, but it sure as fuck isn’t what I want to hear now. Not at all.

  “Whatcha working on?” He peers over my shoulder and watches me sketch. I’ve been working on this view from the door of the shop all week. It’s almost a perfect view of the pier and the boats in the harbor across the way. But every time I try it, I shade the water too much and it comes out looking like flames.

  “That boat is perfect,” he says, pointing to a sailboat coasting through the waves.

  “Thanks,” I smile. When I turn my head up toward him, my eyes pause for a moment on his lips. I want to kiss him, but everything has changed between us. I thought defining this thing between us would make it easier, but it hasn’t. It
only made it worse.

  The will reading is tomorrow. Now’s not the time to start blurring lines.

  He leans back for a moment and watches me with scrutiny.

  “What?”

  “Want to give me a tattoo?” he asks, and I let out a hearty laugh, but he doesn’t move or laugh. “Are you being serious?”

  “Yep. Come on.”

  I don’t move, gaping at him. He’s being serious.

  “Murph, I can’t give you a tattoo.”

  “Legally, you’re right. You can’t. But I don’t care. I’m bored, I have a blank spot on my stomach, and you can draw better than me, so come on.” He lies down on the seat and pulls up his shirt, revealing that deep V running down from his abs. How many times have my lips traced that trail? Still gets me every time.

  “I can’t draw better than you, and I’ve never even held a tattoo gun in my hands.”

  “No one can even see it. Just draw me a flower or something.”

  This time I’m the one to sit on the red rolling stool. “You’re being serious.”

  He nods, and I can’t hide the smile bitten between my teeth. Finally, I give in. “Okay, what do I do?”

  As he walks me through the steps, from opening the needles to sanitizing the skin, my heart wracks itself against the walls of my chest. Not because I’m nervous but because I’m excited. More excited than I’ve been in a very long time. When I finally hold the gun, putting pressure on the pedal, the vibration runs through my arm, all the way to my spine and down my tailbone.

  It’s addicting.

  He shows me how to adjust the needle and dip the ink. But just as I ready myself to touch his skin, I hesitate. “What do you want?”

  Shrugging his shoulders, he smiles at me. “You pick.”

  I knew he was going to say that.

  It takes me a moment before I decide. When I look at him, I hope he appreciates it and won’t be too mad. It’s simple, yet meaningful.

  As soon as the needle touches his skin, my heart calms. He doesn’t even flinch. There is a blank spot, right on the side of his torso, underneath an ocean wave that stretches from his back.