Ripped (Real, #5)(16)
“Asshole. Dog. Liar. Cheat. Scum. If you regret our time together, I regret it tenfold.”
His eyes flash dangerously, but he remains in that deceptively calm posture. “Go on,” he warns.
“Why? Your pride hurting?”
A smoldering look settles in his eyes as he trails them purposely down my body. “Enough to want you to change your mind, maybe.”
I grit my teeth, knowing that once there was a girl inside me who believed that one day she’d marry him. But the only girl left now is the angry one, the one he hurt, and she grits out, “You’ll never have me again.”
“Your lips say one thing but the rest of you screams the opposite.”
We stare for another moment, and I hate that I’m breathing hard, and somehow do feel flustered, flushed, my breasts aching, something throbbing between my legs, before I strain out, “Who cares?”
“You do,” he says. “And I do.” He stands again, comes over, and leans forward. “You hate it, but right now—knowing how much you f*cking hate the way you want me—it’s making me high.”
He surveys my chin, lips, cheekbones, forehead, as if thirsty to see something in my face he fails to see. Then he whispers, “You make me hard too, but that’s about the only thing you do for me,” and loosens his hold.
“Fuck you.”
He flashes me a smile. “Oh, it’s such a pleasurable experience, I will.”
I feel strangely bereft of all fight as he puts some distance between us and settles back in the seat, lips still curled as he watches me in silence.
My insides tremble with a combination of anger and lust that I don’t want. God, he’s a narcissistic pig. So in love with himself he probably even smiles like that for his own sake in the mirror. His smile is one of the things everybody in the world can’t stop talking about. It’s one of those manly smiles that makes him look even sexier. It softens the silver in his eyes, at the same time melting your insides. Now the fact that he has a beautiful smile makes my insides boil while still attracting me.
GOD!
I want to say something painful that will hurt him. But no. He wants to punish me because I ruined his concert? I’m going to ruin. His f*cking. Life.
FOUR
WHEN LIFE WAS GOOD
Pandora
A little over six years ago
“First we will get a small apartment. A loft!”
“That’s right,” a low voice answers over the top of my head.
“And all we’d need is a bed in it,” I add.
“And you,” the husky voice murmurs, and I turn into the arms holding me. Silver eyes meet mine—silver like a wolf’s, heavy-lidded, both tender and eerily sharp. His lips are curled into this adorable smile, and I know right then and there that my boyfriend loves that I suggested a bed, of course.
“We can even get a dog,” I add cheekily.
“And a fish.”
He lifts one arm to point at the desiccated swordfish on the wall of the yacht we’ve stolen into. It’s not ours, but this is one of our hiding places. One of the many places where we meet and spend as much time together as we can.
It’s almost dawn now, and though we haven’t slept and could easily stay here forever, he grudgingly gets up and shoves his long, muscular legs into his jeans.
“Gorgeous,” he calls as he shoves a hand into his jeans pocket.
I turn from where I’m slipping into my sweatshirt.
“There’s been something I’ve been wanting you to have . . .” He steps over and holds something small and shiny to the thin streaks of light that steal through the round yacht windows. A sliver of excitement runs through my body when I realize what it is.
“Is this a promise ring?”
When my lashes raise, I find him watching me with somber intensity.
With the intensity of a boy who loves you.
Just like you love him.
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper, reverently reaching out for it.
“It was my mother’s.” His voice is textured with emotion, his beautiful face harsh with it as he watches me slip it onto my finger.
“What are you promising me?” I taunt, lifting my face to his.
I will never forget the cocky lift to the corner of his lips when he said, “Me.”
Oh, god, I love him. I love him like a storm loves a sky and a smile needs a face. Mackenna is the best of me, the rock that holds me, the only one who understands me. He’s all that is left of my life that is tender and happy. I throw myself at him and he catches me, squeezes me, hugs me tighter than anyone else hugs me. “I’ll say yes and take all of you, so don’t joke about this,” I warn.
“No joke,” he promises, lifting my hand so he can see. “Looks pretty on you.”
I squeeze his fingers with mine as my heart squeezes at the very same time. “But my mother and your father . . . they both need us right now.”
Our lives are so imperfect. Cluttered with obstacles between him and me.
After my father died, my mother turned even more strict and bitter.
After Mackenna’s mother died, his father turned to drugs. Dealing drugs.
And now, my mother is the DA in charge of convicting Mackenna’s father, and the case is destroying our every chance at happiness.