Twisted Hate (Twisted 3)

“No, I didn’t.” I took another step toward her. “I’m sorry for asking Ava to end her friendship with you. It was fucked up.”

Jules looked away. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not. Even if I didn’t mean for you to hear it, you did. I hurt you, and I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. A tear cascaded down her cheek, glinting silver in the moonlight, and something in my chest cracked. “Once upon a time, you would’ve never apologized.”

“Once upon a time, I was a dickhead.”

“Who says you still aren’t?”

A small smile curved my lips, but it disappeared when Jules spoke again.

“What are we doing, Josh? This is supposed to be just sex.”

That was what I kept telling myself, too. But I was damn tired of pretending our arrangement hadn’t evolved into something that couldn’t be constrained by rules, and the thought that Jules believed I was using her for just sex, even if she’d consented to it, made my heart twist into a brutal knot.

I didn’t have a problem with no strings attached sex. Hell, that was all I’d indulged in since I started having sex. But with Jules, it felt wrong, like a custom-made suit that still didn’t fit right.

“There’s a difference between what something is supposed to be and what it actually is, Red.”

There it was. An admission thinly disguised as ambiguity.

It lingered in the air, which fell so silent I could hear the increased tempo of Jules’s breath and every tick of the grandfather clock in the corner.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

I didn’t know when I stopped hating Jules and started craving her. All I knew was that I did, and I never wanted to go back.

“Maybe there shouldn’t be.”

I stilled. “What,” I said, my calm voice belying the sudden storm surging through my veins, “is that supposed to mean?”

Jules lifted her chin, but I detected a tiny tremble in her voice. “It means we should date other people. Our arrangement is non-exclusive. It’s time we take advantage of that clause.”

A dark, ugly beast reared its head and snarled in my chest. “The fuck we will.”

Who the fuck could she possibly want to date, anyway? Asher Donovan? The fucker was a notorious womanizer, and he didn’t even live in D.C.

“Those were the rules,” Jules pointed out.

“Rules change.”

“No.” She inched back, a hint of panic creeping into her eyes. “Not with us.”

“You’ve never had an issue bending the rules before.”

I stepped toward her; she stepped back. A simple, ceaseless dance that ended until her back was pressed against the wall and less than an inch separated her mouth from mine.

“What are you so afraid of, Red?” My breath ghosted across her skin.

“I’m not afraid of anything.”

“Bullshit.”

“This was supposed to be simple.”

“It’s not.”

There’d never been anything simple about her.

Jules was the most complicated, fascinating person I’d ever met.

She closed her eyes. “What do you want from me?” she asked, sounding resigned.

Another tear slipped down her cheek. I wiped it away with my thumb, fierce protectiveness rising inside me.

I didn’t know what I wanted from her, but I knew I wanted her. I knew she haunted my thoughts and invaded my dreams until she was the only thing I could see. And I knew that being with her was one of the few times I truly felt alive.

“I want you.” I didn’t need to dress the truth up win flowery language; it was powerful enough on its own. “We’re not dating other people, Red. I don’t give a fuck what the original terms of our arrangement were. Do you want to know why?”

A hard swallow disrupted the delicate lines of her throat. “Why?”

I lowered my head and wound my hand through her hair, pulling her even closer to me.

“Because you’re mine,” I said against her mouth. “Let another man touch you, Jules, and you’ll find out just how easily I can take a man’s life as I can save one.”