Chapter 12
“Theo, grab her coat.”
I’m still dizzy, blood still rushing in my ears from our kiss as Marcus jerks his head at his friend.
Theo snatches my abandoned jacket from the ground and hands it to me, his gaze lingering on mine as I accept it. Shivers race up my spine at the strange mix of emotions that seem to clog the air in the small alley, making it impossible to catch a full breath.
“
Come on. We’re taking you home.” Marcus heads toward the mouth of the alley, and I follow, conscious of the other two men behind me.
We walk half a block to Marcus’s car, which is just as expensive-looking as Theo’s, although I have no idea what kind either of them are. Marcus holds the door open for me, a strangely chivalrous gesture for a man who just got into a brutal fist-fight in an alley.
I don’t comment on it though. I just slide into the car and wait while the three of them pile inside too. The stereo is playing, a song I know and love, and when I glance at the dashboard, I’m surprised to see it’s not the radio.
This is music Marcus chose.
It doesn’t seem to fit him—or at least, what I know of him—and I find myself curious about why he likes this song, or if he even does.
But I’m tired of being curious about this man. Tired of being drawn to him. Tired of flailing against the fucking bonds that only seem to grow tighter every time I struggle.
So I don’t comment on the music either.
The drive is silent, and when we pull up outside my apartment, I half expect Marcus to shove his door open, yank me from my seat, and carry me upstairs to fuck me against a wall.
But he just grips the steering wheel tightly, his gaze focused straight ahead. “Goodnight, angel.”
He’s still pissed. I can see it in the way his body seems spring-loaded, the muscles bunching under his leather jacket. When his gaze cuts to me for just a second as I unclip my seatbelt, it’s not fury I see in his eyes, though. It’s something almost like hurt.
I can’t make sense of that, so I just mutter a goodnight under my breath and slip out of the car quickly, escaping the too-tight confines that roil with too many emotions. The cold night air bites at my skin as I hurry up to my apartment building and let myself inside.
I take the stairs to the second floor two at a time, but when I get inside my unit, I slow my frantic pace, taking my time as I shimmy out of my clothes and pull on a pair of sweats and a worn t-shirt, then brush my teeth and wash my face.
I’m not in any hurry anymore.
As late as it is, I don’t want to go to sleep yet.
I don’t want to fucking dream.
* * *
Of course, sleep comes anyway. I’m fucking exhausted, and no matter how long I manage to hold it off, my eyelids eventually slide shut.
I wake up three times over the course of the night, shocked out of sleep by vivid dreams of the three men who haunt me.
And as I lie in bed in the morning, clutching my pillow to me with my good arm, I realize why the dreams are getting worse.
I keep giving them new material.
Feeding them new memories.
For two and a half years, I’ve dreamed of the night I was shot, replaying it over and over, holding on to the vestiges of my memories of the three men from the club. But now that they’ve crashed back into my life, my sleeping mind has a long list of entirely new fucked up shit to pull from as it tries to process what the hell is going on.
And how I feel about it all.
Marcus didn’t fuck me last night, and I’m not the one who got into a fist fight, but my body still feels wrecked as I haul myself out of bed and take a shower.
It’s late morning, almost noon, but I don’t have to be at work again until eight tonight. Part of me wants to spend the day holed up again, to only leave my apartment when I have to go to Duke’s. Unfortunately, I’m pretty solidly out of food by now, and besides, I can’t live like that.