Scorch (Virtues & Lies 2)

Fuck. I need her.

I fucking need her more than anything else. More than this life we’ve been groomed for. Herded into to.

I love you, morena, I whisper in my thoughts. It feels like the most significant thing I’ve said in forever, and regretfully it’s not even out loud. It’s not to her pretty face and beguiling eyes. It’s all inside me. My head. My body. It’s all me, and fuck! Fuck, it hurts not knowing if she still feels it. Our feelings, our bond, our love…eternity. Light years and never-ending lifetimes of love.

Still, it doesn’t stop me from hearing her soft whisper. “I love you, too, cariño.”

The ghostly rasp of her words rolls through my body, fuelling my already burning need until it feels like I’m about to burst.

Fuck this!

I can’t sit here and watch anymore. Pulling at my hair, I scoot to the edge of the bench seat, and just as I’m about to go get her, a tall, dark-haired guy approaches her.

Sitting beside her on the narrow bench, his arm crosses her back, his hand bracing on the seat beside her.

He’s got a drink in his other hand, and as he whispers in her ear, he trails the glass over her arm.

Rage chills all the heat from my body, coursing through every one of my trembling limbs. My feet come down hard with every step, and my tunnel vision stops me from seeing anything other than some fucking stranger touching what’s mine. His body presses closer to my wife’s.

Motherfucker has no idea what’s about to happen to him. I make it halfway across the room before I’m being dragged back.

“Don’t. Fuck. This. Up.”

She’s looking up at the cunt like he means something. She’s giving him her smile.

Fuck!

Pulling me through the tight corridor, Leo doesn’t stop until we’re back in the bar area.

“Are you stupid?” he grits as he pushes me into the wall. “Are you trying to make things harder?”

I push him off me, pulling my suit back into place as I walk to the bar. Much like he did for her, the bartender has my drink ready and waiting for me. Slugging it back, I level Leo with my scowl. “She’s not alone. Or at the fucking bar! She’s walking around here like she knows the cesspit like the back of her hand.”

“He’s a development.”

“He’s dead.”

“Fine. But not tonight, because we have no idea who he is.” Leo shoots back his own drink, and it’s taking every motherfucking vestige of my self-control and reason not to deck him and take care of business right the fuck now. “Fucking stings, doesn’t it?”

“What?”

“Seeing her being touched by someone else. Not being able to do what needs to be done…” Tipping his head in thanks to the bartender, he starts for the other side of the room. “Let’s go. We have shit to do.”

No fucking way. If he thinks I’m leaving her here with that bastard plastered to her, he’s lost his fucking mind.

“Do you want to know who he is or what?”

Of course I do. I want to know who the fucker is and why she’s letting him touch her.

Following him through another slim passage, I can’t stop looking back. I can’t physically see her, but it doesn’t mean that the image of her smiling at that guy, letting him touch her, isn’t burning in my head like they’re still in front of me.

Has she left me for some fucking stranger in this place?

No. Fuck no!

The townhouse is a maze of slim passages and themed rooms. It’s the kind of place you can easily get lost in. The kind of place that houses enough dark corners to hold a magnitude of secrets and dark stories.

We pause by a heavily carved, dark wood door. The familiar smell of cigars and burning pinewood filters through to the hallway. It reminds me of family dinners and hours spent with my grandfather. It’s the smell of my childhood.