Slashed (Extreme Risk 3)

Nice to know my resolve lasted all of ten weeks.

Fuuuuuuuuuuck.

It takes every ounce of self-control I have not to pound the shit out of the steering wheel. Instead, I take the turn onto my street a little wide and Cam gasps as she’s thrown against the door. Her incessant chatter finally dies and I can feel her staring at me as she tries to figure out what’s going on. The fact that she doesn’t know—the fact that she’s so clueless about how I feel about her that she doesn’t have any idea what she did to me tonight—only fucks me up more.

I pull into my parking spot too fast, glad it isn’t winter or I would have gone sliding right into the bushes—or worse, into the side of my condo. But it isn’t winter and the SUV slams to a shuddering stop. I can almost hear it groan with relief as I shove it into gear and start to climb out.

Or maybe that’s just Cam, who’s scrambling out before I can even walk around and open the door for her.

“Do you want me to go?” she asks as I unlock my front door.

Since I don’t know the answer to that question right now, I turn it back on her. “Do you want to go?”

“I don’t—no, I just—you seem—”

Listening to her stumble all over herself is painful, so I cut her off before she can do any more damage. “I already told you, you can stay here as long as you want to.”

“Yes, but—”

“But what?” I don’t look at her when I ask. Instead, I walk down the hall to my bedroom, yanking my shirt over my head as I go.

I feel like I’m going to crawl right out of my skin, like I’m going to explode at any second. It’s not the first time I’ve felt like this—Cam and boarding and my ridiculous family have brought me to this place over and over again through the years—so I know the only thing that’s going to make it better is raw, physical exertion. And since fucking Cam is out of the question right now—I don’t have enough self-control to make sure I don’t hurt her the way she’s hurting me—a late night swim will have to do.

Except Cam’s following me down the hall, standing in the doorway of my bedroom as I grab the first pair of board shorts I come to.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

I think about going into the bathroom to change, but fuck it, she’s the one who followed me in here. Besides, it’s not like she hasn’t seen everything I’ve got.

I drop trou in the middle of my room, ignoring the startled sound Cam makes as I step out of my jeans and boxers and pull my swimsuit on. Then I’m throwing open the sliding glass door that takes up half the back wall of my bedroom and stepping out into the late night heat.

I let myself out of my gated patio and follow the path through the copse of trees that separates my condo from the pool. I live in a small luxury complex—only twenty units total—and one of the reasons I bought here was because of the great facilities. I use them a lot, but I’m one of the only ones. Most of these places are vacation homes to people who only use them a few weeks a year, in the winter.

Cam’s following me. I can hear her brushing up against the bushes as she limps along the path. I’m moving fast, though—and am still so pissed off that it doesn’t occur to me to slow down enough for her to catch me. Instead, I pick up my pace, bursting out of the trees and into the pool area at close to a run.

As I do, I toss my towel on the closest chaise longue, and then take a running dive straight into the pool. I go in clean and shallow, the coolness of the water barely permeating my consciousness as I move straight into swimming laps at a punishing speed.

I do twenty before I finally feel the water all around me.

Thirty before the physical exertion starts to cool the rage deep inside of me.

Fifty before my brain starts to work its way free from the haze of hurt and jealousy that grabbed hold of me as I watched Cam laugh and flirt and dance with another guy.

I’m at seventy-five laps when I feel it, another body brushing against mine as I come out of the turn. And then Cam is wrapped around me, arms winding around my waist and legs tangling with mine as she pulls me to a stop in the shallow end of the pool.

When she realizes I’m not going to fight her, she pulls me closer—my back to her naked chest—as she presses hot, open-mouthed kisses along my shoulders and upper back. As her tongue licks along the diagonal lines of the endless knot I have tattooed there, desire whips through me.

It doesn’t erase my fury, but it doesn’t add to it either. Instead it merges with it, getting all mixed up inside me until I can’t tell where the need starts and the rage ends. So when Cam tries to step back, tries to turn me gently around, I grab her instead. Pulling her in

front of me. Press her up against the side of the pool.

And then I devour her.

My mouth slams down onto hers and it’s a battle more than it is a kiss. Lips, teeth, tongues. Biting, sucking, licking, taking. Then my hands are in her hair, pulling hard enough to have her gasping as I yank her head back so that I can go for her throat.

“Luc!” she cries out, her body arching against mine as I ravage her neck, the hollow of her throat, her collarbone, sucking bruises into the delicate skin again and again and again.