“Dude, not cool,” Gray said from right behind me. His heavy hands fell on my shoulders, squeezing hard, and I couldn’t shrug him off. “Release the redhead and step away before I have to make you.”
“Kin.” I pulled her against me, begging her with my eyes to look at me again like she’d just looked at another guy. “Do you want him? Do you want to fuck him?”
“You’re disgusting,” she seethed. “He’s her brother! He’s going to be my uncle.”
“Then why the fuck were you looking at him like you want to ride his cock?” I roared in her face.
I realized I was overreacting a millisecond before her hand slapped my face. I dropped my hold on her as twin tears spilled down her cheeks. “I hate you,” she whispered, and her words sliced my heart open. I gasped for my next breath, but I couldn’t fill my lungs. “If even a small part of me thought we still had a chance, you just proved me wrong. Don’t ever touch me again, Jace. Because if you do, I’ll bring you to your knees.”
Shoving me back, she walked around me and stormed away. But not before I saw the guy with her dad rushing after her.
“No!” I yelled after her, and I would have gone after her then and there, but Sin had shown up now, helping Gray hold me back. “No,” I choked out, feeling the panic try to swallow me whole as my eyes followed after Kin until I couldn’t see her any longer. “I’m losing her.”
“You already lost her,” Kassa informed me, devoid of sympathy. “And you have no one else to blame but yourself.”
Chapter 12
Kin
Strong arms caught me around the waist before I even reached the exit. I kicked backward in rage, wanting to make Jace hurt as much as I was. I couldn’t believe the way he’d just behaved, but I wasn’t going to put up with his shit anymore tonight.
“Jesus,” a voice that was definitely not Jace St. Charles’s laughed in my ear. “Feisty little thing, huh?”
I gasped and turned my head to see it was Derrick Stewart who had his arms around me. The chill that had started to invade my body began to fade, replaced with something white-hot and edgy. Guilt flooded through me all over again. The only person to ever incite that kind of reaction in me was Jace, and I felt like I was betraying him in some way for feeling it now with Derrick.
But that was crazy. Jace and I were over. I was allowed to lust after anyone I freaking wanted.
Not this guy, though.
I couldn’t want this guy.
He was going to be related to me, and that just felt wrong. As I thought about letting him kiss me, the lust that had been eating at me since I literally ran into him earlier dissolved and turned to feelings of disgust. Kissing him would be like kissing Caleb.
Gross and wrong.
So I turned in his arms and shoved him away. “I thought you were Jace,” I told him, pushing my hair back from my face.
“The guy who was in your business earlier?” I nodded, crossing my arms over my chest.
His dark eyes fell to the wrist I was keeping close to my stomach. Long fingers caught my arm and pulled it away gently. Turning it over, he skimmed his fingers over the red marks Jace had left. A lump clogged my throat, not at how tender he was being, but because Jace had touched me so forcefully. He’d never done something like that before, and I knew he’d done it because he was upset with me—the desperation had been coming off him in waves, the panic making his eyes manic. But that didn’t excuse the way he’d just treated me. It wouldn’t make the fucking bruises go away.
“He your ex?” Derrick asked, his jaw clenched as his thumb skimmed over a particularly tender red spot.
“Yeah,” I choked out, tugging my arm free. “Look, I need to go. It’s getting late.”
“Do you need a ride?”
“I can hail a cab or get an Uber,” I assured him, unsure why. This guy was no one to me. He was going to be family, but it wasn’t like we would ever see each other again. Scott couldn’t have cared less about me, and we never saw each other. Out of sight, out of mind—that was how our relationship worked.
“Let me drive you home,” Derrick urged. “You’re still upset, and I think you need someone to vent to.”
He held out his hand. I looked down at it, then back up at his face. Fuck, he was male perfection. Just looking at him made it hard to remember he was going t
o be family one day. But the hunger I’d seen on his face earlier was banked now, and only concern for me shone out of those dark chocolate orbs.
“I’m a really good listener,” he said, sweetening the deal. “My sisters all tell me I’m good boyfriend material because I know how to pay attention.”
My teeth sank into the inside of my bottom lip. “I’m not shopping for a new boyfriend.”