Blood sloshed in my ears and terror slogged through my veins.
A steady thwump, thwump, thwump.
Liquid metal.
Heavy.
Too much.
Panic and fear.
No. No. No.
The threat did nothing to deter him. The door banged open an inch before I was bearing down again. With all my might. With all the fight I had in me. The latch so close to catching.
His voice seeped like venom through the crack he made. “You fucking bitch. You fucking bitch whore. I’ll kill you for what you did. I know it was you. You ruined my life, you stupid bitch, and you are going to pay.”
Fingers were in the frame, forcing it open.
Adrenaline and anguish. I screamed with them as I shifted a fraction. I rammed into the door with my shoulder.
I gave it everything I had.
The pain of it nearly split me in two.
But sometimes wills and physical strength were two different things.
Because he kicked the door, sending it crashing against the interior wall.
I flew to the floor.
Tim pushed his way inside, a menace that cast a shadow on my grandmother’s house as he stepped toward me. I slid back across the floor, the bare skin of my thigh chaffing against the carpet.
Sobbing.
Hating that I couldn’t stop the terror from taking hold.
Hating the words that fumbled from my mouth.
That I pled.
That I begged.
“Please. No. Oh, God, please, I’ll do anything.”
Anything.
Because it was the brutal truth of the horrible matter.
I wouldn’t rather die than let Timothy Roth touch me.
20
Rex
I was going to lose my fuckin’ head. I stormed through my kitchen, raking my fingers through my hair like it might stand the chance of calming me down.
Frankie was having her usual Friday night sleepover at my mom’s, and I was supposed to be heading out to meet up with Kale to grab a bite to eat, after which no doubt we’d end up at the bar so we could hang out with Ollie for a few hours.
But there I was.
Fuming.
I had no claim. No right to think of that girl as mine. That didn’t mean my heart and body and mind weren’t screaming it when the piece of shit who’d been giving her a hard time at Olive’s a few weeks back pulled into her driveway. When he stumbled out of his shiny silver Mercedes and staggered up the inclined bank toward the deck steps.
What the hell was she thinking? Messing around with that scumbag?
My brain spun with a shit-ton of possibilities I didn’t want to entertain.
Had she gone back to the bar on a night I hadn’t been there and run into this douche and decided to give it a go? Had she given him her number that night? Had something been going on all along?
No. I knew better than that. There was no chance she’d been fucking around with him before I’d been a complete bastard and pushed her away.
My thoughts headed south.
Right to that mouth.
That fucking mouth that had been wrapped around me two weeks ago.
Warm and wet and sucking me deep, the girl on her knees like some kind of offering.
A sacrifice.
Somehow, I’d gotten that was what it’d been. That she’d been cutting herself wide open. Letting me take and use and exploit.
And I’d wanted it. Wanted it so badly. Wanted her so badly. But how the fuck could I do that to her? Not when I still couldn’t make sense of the disaster zone that was my heart. Not when I was locked up in bullshit chains that she didn’t need to be tied to. The last two weeks had been torture, pretending she wasn’t right there, across the street. That I didn’t care when there was a fucking uproar demolishing my insides.
I made another pass through my kitchen, peering out the window like some deranged ex-boyfriend.
Did I actually think that asshat was any worse than I was?
Shit.
Maybe I did. Because I was back to glaring out my kitchen window with my fingertips digging into the granite countertop. Hoping they might sink in and permanently embed themselves. Anchor me so I couldn’t do something supremely stupid.
Like run out the door and start making demands I had no right to make.
Why the hell was the fool hesitating at the base of her steps? Why were his shoulders and back heaving, hands in fists?
This guy . . . it was like . . .
Like he was pissed.
Not pissed.
Enraged.
My heart did something funny when he finally snapped into action. It was a slow, unfurling of awareness that pushed around the periphery of my consciousness as I watched him climb the steps. An overwhelming sense that slicked like ice down my spine, forcing me to stand and take note.
My eyes narrowed, scrutinizing his every move.
I didn’t have a direct view of the door since it was on the side of the house, only the deck where the douchebag stood fully in my line of sight. He pounded on her door with the back of his fist.