It’s soothing. I pull her to me. Feels nice. Good. Softness and silky skin, her sweet scent and loose hair, her closeness.
Too good. Too easy to lose myself in her.
And I want to. So fucking much. I’d stay here with her, forever, keeping her safe in my arms, burying myself in her body until we can’t do it anymore, and then fall asleep together in her bed, away from the world.
Locked inside together.
But life takes the choice out of my hands, as it likes to do. My cell beeps with a new message. I turn and reach for it, thoughtlessly checking to see what it is.
It’s Mage, telling me that Clyde, the gang leader I contacted about getting me into the underground fight club, agreed to meet me. I never met the guy, but Ralph, another gang leader I happen to know, got me the meeting.
I sit up, stare at the message on the tiny screen, and reality crashes down around my ears. Cold washes through me, turning my insides to ice. Why tonight of all nights? Why can’t I have one evening with my girl?
My girl…
This is a fantasy, an illusion. The longer I linger, the harder it’ll be to end it, won’t it? Because it sounds like Clyde can help me. The game is on, and oh fuck, Megan…
I glance at her, lying there, naked and damn beautiful, wanting me, wanting the man she thinks I am, someone good and nice, someone I’m not.
It’s time. Time to make sure she stays away from me, that she stays safe. Deal with her stalker, make sure she is offered another job—and push her away, make sure she hates me enough to avoid me.
Even if it breaks me all over again, and this time with no hope of forgiveness.
Chapter Eleven
Megan
I’m still coming down from the most intense orgasm of my life, and I want Rafe to hold me. I want to snuggle, curl on his strong body and trace his many tattoos and scars.
Scars. I’ve felt them on his arms, thin ones, covered in colorful ink. Then there’s the big one on his left shoulder, front and back, as if something went right through and tore his flesh up.
I shudder.
So many questions on my mind, so much more of his body I want to map. That rippling eight-pack, the broad shoulders, the bulging pecs. The muscular back he has now turned toward me as he checks something on his phone.
I lift my hand to touch his warm skin, but before I do, his spine stiffens and he straightens. I hear a muffled grunt, and then
he’s standing up and stepping away from the bed.
Smoke and darkness. Something’s off, I know it as every muscle in that perfect, beautiful body tenses. His eyes, when he finally turns to look at me, are shadowed and guarded.
“I have to go,” he says, and swallows hard.
“You could stay.” I know it’s a lost cause before he answers, when a flash of sorrow goes over his handsome features, and then his expression closes up completely.
“This was a mistake.”
“No.” My eyes sting as I sit up on the bed. “Don’t say that.”
“Meg...” He’s standing there, gloriously naked, his sculpted body and fine face so handsome he burns like the sun. “We can’t do this again.”
“No,” I whisper¸ my heart heavy.
Oh God, no. This isn’t what was supposed to happen. I was supposed to break him, then slowly, carefully put him together again. Hold him. Wait until he talks to me, tells me about his past, so that I can help him.
I saw him come apart in my arms, felt him change, and hoped we could be together.
Because I fell for him before he even knew my name, before he looked my way. And now he’s leaving again as if he’d never been here.