Hurt spilled from her trusting eyes.
“Keeton?”
I gave her a tight nod.
“Braxton? The rest of the guys?”
Each question she demanded hit me like a gunshot. “Yeah,” I managed through gritted teeth.
She dropped her head into her hands, and she started to tremble. She turned away like she couldn’t stand to continue to look at me
“I can’t . . . I can’t believe this. It’s all been a lie. All of it. Us. This house. Our relationship.”
“No. I love you, Maddie. I fuckin’ love you. It’s the only true thing I have in my life.”
I took her by the elbow.
Gently.
Tenderly.
With the little good that was in me because that little good belonged to her. “I never wanted you to look at me this way.”
Emotion crested from her. Coming at me in waves. Warily, she turned back to look at me, tears coating her cheeks. “Then change it. Stop. Be the man I fell in love with. Because you know I can’t stay here, otherwise.”
I wound my arms around her. Hugged her tight. “Okay.”* * *Keeton laughed. Nothing but mocking. He set his elbows on the table and threaded his fingers together. Eyes dimming with the evil that lived inside. “You think it works like that? That you can just walk? I think you’re smarter than that.”Twenty-ThreeLeifI jerked awake. Disoriented. Body warmer than it’d ever been. A sense that everything in the world was right, which should have been my first clue that something was very, very wrong.
Tiny specks of light filtered in through the drapes that hung over her window.
Her window.
I slammed my eyes closed when I realized I wasn’t waking up to the same twisted dream I’d been fighting for the last month.
Nope.
It was even more fucked up than I could have imagined.
I was actually wrapped around Mia West from behind.
In the motherfucking bare flesh.
That mass of black hair was bunched in my face, and her sweet spirit was dancing all around me. Tight, lust-inducing body tucked to the well of mine, like she’d been perfectly carved to fit in that space.
Panic welled to overflowing as my arms curled tighter around her.
She rustled, the tiniest moan coming from her mouth that had me conjuring scandalous ideas all over again.
As if I hadn’t done enough.
Should have known if I stayed it would turn out this way. Should have trusted my gut when it’d first warned me to get up and go. That my staying here was only going to bring more calamity.
But no. I’d chosen to torture us both. Did I really think I could push us right up to a razor-sharp edge and neither of us were gonna get cut?
Slayed.
Misery pulsed.
I gulped around it.
It was worth it.
Worth the additional penalties that would be dealt.
Even if saving that little girl meant their names might not be avenged.
That selfish thought might as well have punched me in the face.
Fear and disbelief traipsed over me, a wild disorder, because I couldn’t understand the spell this woman had cast over me. This girl who snuggled tighter into my hold like she thought it was a possibility that I might never have to let her go.
Since I was already gettin’ selfish, I took a little more, held her tight and breathed her in and whispered that I wished I were better. That I might have something left that I could offer her.
But it was time to suck it up and accept the truth.
Devils and angels didn’t mix.
I forced myself to unravel from her. As quietly as I could, I climbed off the side of her bed, snatched my jeans from the floor, and shrugged them on. I gathered the rest of my things from where they were scattered around.
Heaving out a sigh when I looked down at her, I gave myself one second more to look on her beauty as the sun peeked its way through the drapes.
I slipped out Mia’s bedroom door, only to pause to take a glance toward the room where her children still slept.
A pang slammed me. Somewhere deep. Something I couldn’t allow myself to feel.
I ducked out the main door and made a beeline down the hall, barely slowing when I got to the multipurpose room at the back.
And fuck, had we found a new purpose for it last night.
The girl written on my skin, the taste of her emblazoned on my tongue. Knew I wasn’t ever going to be the same.
The girl another regret.
Another sin.
Another due.
All of it on me.
I burst out the door and into the rising morning, ensuring the door was shut and locked behind me.
The ground was still damp and littered with leaves and branches from the violence of the storm last night. I rushed across the yard, bare feet on the concrete, my steps echoing their retreat.
A bastard who’d done his bidding.
I flew into the small guest house and went straight for the shower, like the scorching hot spray might burn away the brand she’d scored on me. No chance, but I still tried. Scrubbing at my body until it was raw.