“You were going to kill me!” I roar. The thought that he still might niggles in the back of my mind.
I won’t be a hapless victim this time. I won’t beg and plead. I won’t reach for him as if his touch solves every fucking problem.
“Get away from me,” I sob. “Please.”
He holds me up, and I know without his arms around me I would collapse on the tiled floor of the shower and never stand up again. He’s strength where I am weak. I’ll always be weak, always leaning on someone and never able to endure any burden on my own two feet. It’s almost enough to wish for the death I shunned only seconds ago.
I stand there, bracketed against his chest and sobbing until the water runs cold on my back.
When he shifts to move us out, my fight is renewed.
“I hate you! I hate you!” I step back and pound on his chest again, thundering blows that don’t even faze him. He stands there, and he takes it. I have no idea what his face says, no clue if he’s growing increasingly angry with my violence. I can’t focus on anything but the slow rise and fall of his chest as all of my hate and anger bleeds through my fists.
I act then, taking numerous steps out of the shower. I throw a towel around my shoulders, uncaring that I’m naked and bolt for the door to his room. I can’t stay. I shouldn’t want a man that was willing to kill me. I can’t love a man that can look at me with cold, dead eyes and challenge my truth.
He catches me before my trembling hand can grasp the doorknob. Of course, he does. There’s no getting away from him. Cat and mouse isn’t his game of choice because he won’t allow the split-second chance that his prey will escape.
“Let me go,” I seethe, trying to twist myself out of his unforgiving arms.
“We’re aren’t doing this again,” he warns in my ear. “I won’t let you walk away from me ever again.”
“Please,” I beg fruitlessly. It only makes him grip me tighter.
“You’re going to crash. The adrenaline from your first kill is going to wear off, and you’re going to be confused and disoriented. I’ll be right here with you when it happens.”
The promise sounds more like a threat, but I don’t tell him so. I can already feel my energy zapping out of me by the second.
I shake my head as he turns me in his arms. I don’t want his touch, but I crave it all the same. The warmth of his body draws me in, and my need to curl up in his lap while he pets me and tells me everything will be okay is overwhelming.
“First kill?” I ask after running his words back through my foggy brain.
“Yes,” he answers simply.
He’s moving us now, pulling back the blankets on his king-sized bed and settling us in the middle, him against the headboard and me splayed on his chest. We’re getting his sheets wet, but he doesn’t seem bothered by it.
“What did you do after your first time?” I don’t expect him to answer. He’s not going to tell me secrets or confess his sins to the woman he considers a traitor, but knowing that doesn’t keep the question from my lips. His voice, the rumble of his words against my ear are soothing, and I’m desperate for more.
“I lost my virginity.” He sighs as if resigned to something before speaking again. “I was thirteen.”
That news should shock me. It should jolt me back to life and reconfirm my need to escape this man, this clubhouse, and everything the Ravens Ruin MC touches, but I merely snuggle deeper into his embrace.
“Carrie,” I mumble, my ability to speak slowly draining from me.
“Yes,” he answers. He doesn’t stiffen under me or ask me how I know her name. I don’t have a damn clue how I recall that fact after everything that has happened today, but I’m not surprised. The news had shocked me, shook me to my core when Piper laid it on me as simply as if she’d said, “he likes scrambled eggs.”
The subject reemerging at a time like this is only fitting. It’s just another way to mark our differences, to cement the fact that there never was a chance for us to be together.
“She’d always been the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen,” he continues, his words ripping at my already shredded heart. “She had the silkiest blonde hair and mischievous blue eyes. I never thought I’d see another woman who compared to her.”
His hold against my back tightens, and I want to sulk away, to go lick my wounds in peace.
“And then a couple of months ago a dark-haired girl with fire in her eyes found herself watching me fuck some nameless chick. I was seconds from telling her to leave when I saw you peek around the door frame. It was like lightning hitting my chest. Right in the middle of my clubhouse, a single glance from a gorgeous girl eliminated every other woman from my memory. I was thunderstruck, born again. Nothing before you mattered, and nothing after you exists.”