Uncontrollable Temptations (Tempted #3)(35)
“I was devastated when I found him, I lay beside him and wrapped my arms around him, never wanting to let go. I held on until I felt the heat,” I hoarsely added. “I remember lifting my head and seeing the flames dancing around us. I could hear the sirens from a distance and the firemen calling out for survivors. I hadn’t had a chance to process that Danny was essentially a stranger to me, but he was still the man I loved, and he was gone. I couldn’t leave him,” I said, shaking my head, wondering when the tears would come. They were late, usually arriving the moment I spoke his name. “I stayed with him until they found me. I begged them to take him too but at that point the house was going to collapse and there wasn’t time to pull the both of us out of the fire,” I took a deep breath. “I gave you a piece of me,” I stated. “I gave you one of my scars,” I whispered. I wondered then if I’d ever understand the spell this man had over me, if I’d ever learn why God chose him to be the man to pull me out of the darkness I was succumbing to.
I stared at the rugged man before me, knowing that behind those eyes was a man who lived a shady life. I had no idea what he was capable of, what his life stood for, but he didn’t put a facade on either. He never sheltered me or lied about who he was—he only asked I see both sides of the coin. Danny had me fooled, and thinking of it now I couldn’t be sure I ever really knew the man I fell in love with. How fucked up was that? I vowed from that moment on to have an open mind about Jack, we only had one judge and one jury and that power was not mine to claim. It was probably a very stupid decision on my behalf and I’d get burned, so to speak, but then again I survived one fire, I could survive the one Jack ignited in me.
Jack grabbed my face, startling me and pulling me from my thoughts as his mouth crashed over mine. I forgot we were outside of the diner and that I was putting my business out on display but I realized I also didn’t give a damn. I wrapped my arms around Jack’s neck and parted my lips, inviting him to take another piece of me.
His tongue collided with mine, taking everything I offered and still demanding more. I leaned into him, my chest pressed against his, and let myself go, breaking the chains that bound me to my scars. It was time to let go of the pain and that was a terrifying revelation, especially since the man holding me, asking me to give him all of me, even the broken pieces of myself, was the reason I was letting go of my broken past.
I don’t know which of us broke the kiss, but we were staring at one another now. He looked at me and I felt like he could see everything. I looked at him and saw nothing but black. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t read him. The only thing I was sure of was that Jack was full of scars and the only one I knew about was his son’s death, and even those details were minimal.
“You owe me a scar,” I whispered.
He rubbed his thumb across my lip, his other hand tangled in my hair.
“Fighting hard not to give it all to you, every goddamn scar, every fucking nightmare,” he said softly, as he leaned forward and pressed his lips to the tip of my nose. “C’mon, I’ll take you home.”
“When do you leave?” I asked, as he reached behind him and offered me a helmet.
“I should’ve already been gone,” he said, as he straddled his bike. He pulled down the sunglasses that rested on the top of his head, gripped the handlebars and waited for me to climb on behind him. I wrapped my arms tightly around his waist and leaned my chin on his shoulder, his words stuck on repeat in my head.
Jack drove me home. He didn’t walk me to my door like the other times. He made me swear to lock up and told me he’d call me when he got back but he didn’t know when that would be. I watched him peel away from my curb and drive away. And then I felt it, that slow burn inside my chest and it became clear to me, I was in deep with Jack Parrish.
Chapter Fifteen
I gave you one of my scars.
Her words a soft whisper taunting my thoughts like a demon beckoning my conscience. The moment Anthony implied there was a possibility that Reina was playing me, I became a prisoner trapped in my warped mind.
I long ago decided there was no God, not for me. There was no mystical maker of Heaven and Earth. There was just my maker, the one that held all the control. My maker is my mind and it fights the rest of me for control. Perhaps your brain is supposed to control the rest of your body, it signals everything else inside of you but when your brain is working against you, sending all the wrong signals, fucking with your existence, it becomes your enemy.
I know that my head is my worst enemy. No drug lord, or rival club, not even a cock-sucking mobster like Jimmy Gold, could compare. It’s my mind that tortures me, it’s my mind that reaps victory over me, it’s my mind I will never conquer. I can go to war with the toughest motherfuckers and bring them to their knees, I can take their lives but I’ll always be the loser because the demons inside my head will always have the last word. It’s those same demons that rob whatever goodness wanders into my life.
I’m living my life stuck on pause. My meds are the pause button. They keep me running, allow me to still be a player, but I’m stuck. I’ll always be stuck. And when I start to think I can be more than idle, that I can live again, my maker hits rewind, dragging me down the black hole where I question everything. Looking for the bad, forgetting all about the goodness that others get. It pulls me back to the day I punched holes in the walls searching for bugs. My mind crucifies me to the day I lost my son, when my mind became my maker.