With Every Heartbeat (Forbidden Men 4)

“The fuck you say,” Cora exploded. When she glanced at me, her eyes narrowed with hate, so much hatred I actually shied away from her.

I clutched my chest, wondering how this could have happened. “I…I don’t understand. I’ve been following all my directions, drinking plenty of water, cranberry juices, keeping to the recommended diet, cleaning regularly.”

The doctor shook his head, puzzled. “Your records don’t show you have a history of getting them frequently, either.”

“No,” I agreed. “I’ve never had one before.”

“Have you become sexually active recently?” he asked, scowling to himself, obviously perplexed, as he shuffled through his paperwork to recheck my results.

“What?” I uttered. My face drained and I glanced hastily toward Cora.

Her face turned a purplish red as her jaw hardened. “Yes,” she growled to the doctor as she glared at me. “Yes, she has. Why?”

Oh God.

Panic gripped me. But she knew.

How did she know?

“Oh.” The doctor looked up in surprise. “Well, that explains it then. I swear, the sexual education teachers these days really need to explain how important it is to you young girls to clean up directly after having relations.”

Protectively wrapping my arms over my chest and wanting to die of mortification, I stood there and listened to him lecture me about how I needed to urinate after every “relation,” or at least wipe the “area” so stuff from my partner didn’t get up into my urethra and cause bacteria to grow.

Next to me, a stiff Cora nodded the entire time, agreeing with everything the doctor had to say. But as soon as he finished his lecture and sent me on my way with prescription for my UTI, the glance she sent me told me just how much she was seething under the surface.

We left the treatment center together, side by side. I didn’t speak until we were outside. “How long have you known?” I finally asked.

She cracked off a low, hard laugh before searing me with a hateful glance. “How long have I known what? That you’re the little slut who screwed my boyfriend’s brains out the night he tried to ask me to marry him?”

Her voice was quiet and controlled but filled with enough fury to fuel a rocket. “I figured it out at the bar when sweet, innocent, peaceful Zoey Blakeland sent Oren Tenning after me to defend Quinn.”

Shock reverberated through my system. I couldn’t believe she’d known that long, and done nothing. I opened my mouth to ask why she’d said nothing.

But she suddenly fisted her hand and growled at me. “I swear to God, if I don’t get your kidney because you were too busy fucking my boyfriend, I will kill you.”

For the past five minutes, I’d been feeling like crap because of that very possibility. The last thing I wanted to do was to keep anyone from getting healthier, due to my own carelessness. Realizing my relationship with Quinn might’ve just harmed her entire life made me physically ill.

Before coming to Ellamore, I would’ve started apologizing right then and there. But in the past few months…no. I didn’t apologize. I jerked to a stop and turned to glare right back at her.

“He is not your boyfriend. You fucked around on him, and he moved on, end of story. I never—never—would’ve touched him if you hadn’t cheated on him and lost him first.”

She slapped me. Hard. “You worthless cunt. I could die because of this, and you’re worried about who was faithful and who wasn’t? How fucking selfish can you get?”

Rage swelled. Angier than I’d ever felt in my life—for the way she’d treated me, for the way she’d treated Quinn—I balled my hand into a fist and lashed back. Forget slapping, I hit her right in the nose.

“You won’t die,” I growled. “Roaches always find a way to survive.”

Pain sliced through my knuckles and my cheek stung like hell, but I felt good. So good. Almost as good as I felt when Quinn was inside me.

Until Cora whipped her hair out of her face, and I saw blood leaking through her fingers where she was holding her nose. She stared up at me with a mixture of fear, shock, and...was that respect?

“Oh shit.” I covered my mouth with both hands and immediately started to shake, feeling awful. She’d just finished a round of dialysis and here I was, jacking her in the face. That was so wrong.

But it’d felt so good.

I opened my mouth to apologize, but then I shut it. I wasn’t sorry, I decided. For what she’d done to Quinn, I should’ve hit her twice.

So I spun away from her and marched off.