More Than Lies (More Than #1)(108)

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE





TARALYNN EVANS





There’s a long moment of silence before his face slowly lifts. Shawn’s eyes scan up my body until he reaches my face. I flip the switch on the wall, turning the bedroom light on. Shawn’s eyes don’t even blink.

“Tara?” He says my name in more of a question that makes me look at him a little harder. When I take in his face, what I see looking back at me is a wreck. Shawn’s been crying, but I don’t ask why. I don’t care. I won’t care any longer. He broke me, and not just my heart. Shawn broke all of me.

Looking around the room, it looks like a tornado tore through damn near every inch of my room. My bed is disheveled. The contents that were once on top of my dresser are now on the floor. The mirror is broken, and if I’m seeing straight, which isn’t one hundred percent with the amount of alcohol I’ve downed tonight, Shawn’s knuckles have blood on them.

“What the hell have you done in here?” Disbelief and shock, that’s what I’m feeling right now, but why would he do this? What did I do to deserve any of this? Hasn’t he done enough tonight? “Why?”

Shawn doesn’t answer me.

One minute he’s sitting on the floor, fisting a bottle of booze, the next moment he looks like he’s the one in shock and disbelief. And now, I’m pressed against the wall with his lips against mine. Everything happened so fast I never saw him coming toward me.

“I thought . . . God, baby. Fuck, tell me you’re real.” What does that mean? I don’t have time to give it much thought. I’m pressed harder into the wall as he presses more forcefully into my body. His lips smash down on mine in a bruising manner.

“Get off,” I manage to get out, but that only grants Shawn access inside my mouth. His tongue dives into mine. It’s unwanted. I never thought I’d say that. I never thought, not for a second, not until tonight that I wouldn’t want him. Not anymore. Not ever again. I can’t. I just can’t. “Stop.”

“Baby, I’m sorry.” His voice is a plea. I don’t care. He doesn’t get to play games with my heart.

“Get off me! Now!” I didn’t think it was possible to hurt more, but this, him pressed against me as though he wants me, is too much. My body is shattering all over again. I can’t take this. I can’t take him near me.

“I can’t, Tara. I just can’t let you go. You have no idea, baby. I need you, all of you. Please, Tara.” His begging comes out in raspy gasps.

I shove. I shove as hard as I can and I keep shoving. Raising my knee, I slam it into his crotch. Shawn goes down to the ground cupping himself between the legs.

“Son of a . . . Fuck!” His fist pounds into the carpeted floor.

This was a bad idea. I should have never come home.

After Jared dropped me off at Mac’s, I drank more trying to stop the pain, but nothing worked. This isn’t a pain that alcohol will ever ease. This is a pain that isn’t going away anytime soon. The longer I’m here, the longer it’ll take for me to get over him. I have to leave. I have to get out of here.

I rode to the club with Samantha tonight, so I had to have a cab pick me up from Mac’s and bring me home.

“Tara.” Shawn’s breathing is labored. “Listen, baby. I’m sorry.”

He’s still on the ground recovering from my knee to his balls. I know if I’m going to get out, I have to leave now. I break for the door and run until I’m down the stairs and out the door. Within seconds I’m behind the wheel of my car. I don’t hesitate; I start the ignition and back the car out of the driveway.

There’s a little voice inside my head telling me I shouldn’t be driving, but I don’t pay it a lick of attention. I can’t be here. I can’t be around him.

Not when I still love him.

Even after everything, I love him.

That doesn’t make any sense. How can I love someone that cheated on me? Used me, I guess. If he always knew he’d never make a relationship work, then that’s what he’s been doing the whole time we’ve been together.

He used me.

For sex? He could have gotten that from anyone. I don’t understand.

I press the gas pedal harder.





CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR





SHAWN BRADEN





She’s alive; that’s all that matters.

How is it even possible? He told all of us she was gone. But she isn’t. She was here. I saw her with my own eyes, I felt her, and then I let her go.

My relief is short lived. When I kissed her, the alcohol on my own breath wasn’t the only thing I tasted. She has been drinking tonight, too. Not just at the club for my birthday celebration; I’m pretty damn sure she drank more after leaving me behind at Level.

I can’t wrap my head around Jared’s crash. Why would Cole say she was dead if she wasn’t? There wasn’t a scratch on her body. If she had been on that bike when he wrecked, she would have been hurt. She would have been killed.

She’s not, and after I find her, I will pray and thank God for her. I have to find her first, though. She left in her car, so she might be alive now, but she could easily wreck and kill herself if she’s drunk.