The answer stuns me and my eyes pinch with tears I’ve somehow fought back until now. “Too long.”
“Yes,” he agrees. “Too damn long. I need to see you. I need to come over.”
“No. I won’t let you in.”
“I need to see you.”
“I can’t,” I say without further definition. I can’t so many things right now, I add silently.
“You can. We can. And I damn sure want to. You want to.”
“No,” I lie and tell myself it needs to be the truth. He hurt me. I can’t trust him. He’s trouble when I’ve got enough trouble right now. “No,” I repeat. “I do not want to see you.” Anger rises hard and fast. “You left. You didn’t come back. You hurt me.” God, why did I admit that yet again?
“I did all of those things. Guilty as charged, but I also carried your picture with me every day. Every time I thought the end was here, I thought of you, and I had a reason to stay alive. I never stopped loving you. I never stopped needing you.”
My throat tightens. “I don’t believe you.”
“Meet me somewhere if not there,” he says, his voice low, rough, and with it, a ball of tightly contained emotions storm inside my empty soul and explodes as he adds, “I’ll make you believe me.”
“Why would I believe you? Why would I listen to you?”
“Because of us,” he says simply as if it explains everything and there was a time when it would have. Now just isn’t that time.
“There is no us.”
“After that kiss, we both know that’s a lie.”
“That kiss meant nothing.”
“Then I guess I’d better make the next one count. I’m not going away. Ever again. I’ll see you soon, baby.” He hangs up.
I drop my phone over the edge of the tub to the ground, stabbing fingers into my hair, tears streaming down my face. I’m a prisoner to two men. I’m in love with a man who I should hate. God, I still love Savage. I’ve always loved him. And I’m not only engaged to another man who I don’t love, but I can’t escape him, for reasons I can’t tell anyone. Rick could make everything explode in my face.
He has to go away and he has to do it now.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Savage
I end that call with Candace and step into a cold shower to cool my hot body and hotter temper.
I’m not leaving. She thinks I am and I’ve earned that expectation from her, but I’m not leaving. I’m not walking away from her ever again. Considering who I am and what I’ve become, maybe that’s selfish—it is selfish, but I don’t even fucking care anymore. I love her and she’s not better without me anymore than I’m better without her. I don’t know why she’s with this Manning asshole, but it’s not love or she wouldn’t have kissed the hell out of me tonight, all desperate and hungry. There’s something off about her engagement, something wrong that’s bugging the fuck out of me. I’m going to find out what, too, and if this connects to Tag, he better hope he finds God because the devil will find him. And that devil will be me.
By the time I’m wrapping a towel around my hips, I’m ready to go to her house and find out what. If he’s there, well, we’ll get the confrontation coming over with sooner than later.
I exit the bathroom, fully expecting to be alone, only to find that Adam’s not only still here, sitting on my couch, Smith is sitting next to him. “What part of ‘stay the fuck out of this’ do you two fucktards not understand?” I walk to the bed and grab my bag. “Be gone when I’m back and have my clothes on.”
“You naked is a good way to get rid of us,” Smith snaps.
“I’ve seen worse,” Adam replies. “There was this old lady with sagging skin in Afghanistan. I walked into the house and she ran right out of the bathroom, naked as the day she was born. Scared the fuck out of me.”
“Aren’t you just funny as beans in a belly?” I snap.
Smith smirks. “You say the stupidest shit, Savage. Like telling us to leave.”
“How’s this for stupid?” I challenge. “If you’re still here when I come back out here with my clothes on, I’ll shoot you both.” I walk into the bathroom, throw on sweats and a T-shirt, and sneakers, and then exit to find them both sitting there.
I scrub my jaw. “Fuck. You’re really going to make me shoot you? At least order a damn pizza. I need the energy to shoot you both.”
“Already ordered a half dozen,” Adam says. “Figure we’ll need food and this to get through the night.” He sets a bottle of Johnnie Walker down on the table. “We need you a little drunk and chilled out before we go through all the data Blake sent our way on Gabriel Manning.” There’s a knock on the door. “That’ll be the pizza now.”