Wrath (Sinful Secrets 4)

He looks so fucking unsure. So different than Fairplay Ezra.

I push up on my elbows, close my hand around his hard thigh. I look up into his eyes and give him a smile. “This is how we were, Ez. We’ve been a lot closer than this.”

His dark brows lift, and his mouth curls into a surprised smile, and I sit all the way up so I can wrap my arms around his waist.

“Let’s go get some food. You want to?” He leans his head on top of mine, and it feels so good. “There’s a Waffle House that’s open till…I don't know, but it’s later than this. You like waffles, right?”

I look up at him, and he’s giving me a weird smile. “Did you see me eat them?”

“Sure did.” I grin. “Lots of times. This could be fun. What did Ezra do…” I widen my eyes. “Is that too insensitive?”

“Fuck no.” He climbs off me, grabs my hand and pulls me up off the bed. “Let’s go get that food, and we can talk about the shit I don’t remember. And how to be sure the Josh Miller doesn’t get hurt from street Xannies.”

“Fuck. You know what they are?”

He gives me a little smirky smile. “I know what they are.” His face falls. “Did you always take them?”

“Uh, nope. You used to call me DG, for Do Gooder,” I tell him as we walk into the living area. I scoop up my keys and wallet, feeling almost dizzy with another wave of shock that he’s here.

“I think I like that.” He smiles. “You do seem like a good guy.”

As we walk down to my car—a very not new, but new-to-me black Honda Accord—he tells me how much he liked watching my social media.

“I really liked you in the day,” he says, a crooked smile on his lips as he waits for me to unlock the car. “I liked you at night, too, but…” He trails off as he gets into the car, and I quirk a brow up.

“But?” I give him a smirk.

“It was too much drinking,” he says simply. He buckles, and his eyes find mine. “I’m not judging. Now that I know what happened—” He shakes his head. “I’m not judging. I was worried for you.”

I find, as I drive us through the post-game traffic and toward Waffle House, that he knows about the time I went to the bar in Atlanta, and he saw the snap with Arnie from when I went up to Tuscaloosa.

“You seemed okay for a while,” he muses, rubbing his knee. “But right before you quit posting…” He shakes his head, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“I guess I wasn’t coping that well.”

He looks at me, and he doesn’t even have to ask “coping with what.” I can tell he knows, and I can tell it makes him sad to know it.

“I’m so sorry.” His hand reaches for mine. When his fingers slide between mine, I can’t help a tight squeeze.

“Don’t be sorry, Ez. You didn’t have a good time either. Both of us were sort of lost for a while.”

“But now I found you.”

I smile. “If you want me.”

“Why would you ask, Millsy?” He brings our hands to his lap, folding them against his strong quads. “Let me clarify that fully for you. You are all I’ve wanted since I woke up missing memories. It’s been…sick. And not the good kind.” He gives me a pained look and then tries to mask it with a little smile.

“I want to hear about it,” I say.

“We’ll trade stories. After we get full from waffles, let’s go back to your house. I wanna be in bed with you again.” His handsome Ezra face is bare, so I can read the longing on it. “I had these dreams of being in bed with you,” he says in a soft rasp. His hand squeezes mine. “You’d be holding me. And there was a cello beside us.”

My stomach does a quick twist. “Ezra…I don’t think that was a dream.”

Eight

Ezra

He turns into the parking lot of Waffle House as he says that, and by the time he’s parked, my stomach’s doing somersaults.

“Dude, that’s a memory.” He laughs, looking surprised. “Did you know I played the cello in high school?”

“No,” I whisper. Tears shimmer in my eyes, making halos around the Waffle House street lamps.

“We spent lots of nights in my room,” he says softly. “Where the cello was. I would hold you from the back, like big spoon. As soon as you would let me hold you, it’s the only thing I wanted, too. Well, not the only thing…”

I try to laugh, but tears just spill down my cheeks.

He leans in and kisses them off. “It’s gonna be okay, angel. If you get your memory back, that’s cool. And if you don’t, we’ll just do everything all new now.”