Still Not Over You(69)

Everything inside me breaks.

If he’d thought that revelation would make me weak enough to let him go, he misjudged. Fatally.

All it does is drive me into a pure berserker state.

Everything smells like blood.

Everything turns the color of death.

I’m dark inside, a shadow full of hate, this driving purpose inside me finally having a target. And that target flops limply from my grasp as I grip him by the front of his suit and whirl him around to smash his flesh and bones against the wall with all my strength, bouncing his head off the hard surface, and then driving him down to the ground, following him with the full force of my killing need.

Dallas is a rag doll as I pin him, straddling him, smashing my fist down into him.

His face bursts with bloody ribbons as I ram my knuckles into him again and again, knocking his head back and forth between one blow after another as he turns red, then purple, then black, his face pulped and bruised and swollen.

Every blow is a balm on the bleeding wounds inside me. Every weak, sniveling cry is a triumph.

I’m finally going to end him.

It’s what I’ve lived for all these years. This moment, finding the man who killed my father, and his life in my hands, dangling by a thread I’m only too willing to snap after everything he did to my father, to me, to Kenna.

I hate him. I hate him as much as I hate my old man, except all my hate at my old man was a lie, Kenna was right, Kenna knew...

Kenna.

Fuck.

I still mid-punch, staring blankly down at the ruin I’ve made of Dallas’ face. A few more blows and he'll be gone forever.

A numb, cloudy feeling falls over me. I did that?

I did, turning savage, becoming the monster I always told her I am. And it turns my stomach.

Kenna believed in me. Kenna believed in me and she’s dying for it, and I think even if I killed Dallas right now she’d never say a word and still quietly accept me, and yet...and yet...

I can’t stand the idea of being someone other than the man she believes in.

I can’t stand being a man who cares more about killing Dallas than about saving her.

My heart hurts. My heart hurts in the most awful ways, and the urge to snap his neck is still trembling in my fingers, but I can’t. I fucking can’t.

Not for Kenna, and not for me.

He looks up at me, barely conscious, his eyes just tawny slits through puffed eyelids. He lets out a groan that might be a word, tongue moving limply in his battered mouth.

I curl my upper lip and spit at him. “You’re not worth it,” I mutter, lifting myself off him just as James and Riker come clattering back, reeling around the corner.

“Boss?” James gasps.

“Get him in cuffs,” I say firmly, jerking my head toward Dallas.

Then I bend to lift Kenna into my arms again. “And get me a car. If we can’t find the paramedics, I’m taking her in my fucking self.”





19





Falling With You (Kenna)





I haven’t felt this awful since the first and last time I tried tequila.

I’m not sure where I am. Everything smells like Lysol, my head is killing me, and my mouth is sticky and gross.

I hurt and feel oddly hollow, and there’s a scared quiet impulse inside me telling me to stay still as a rabbit hiding from a wolf, because the last thing I remember is danger, fear, something disgusting on my tongue, the knowledge that I was going to die.

I’m not dead, though.

Am I?

How can I be dead, when the hand in mine feels so very warm?

Carefully, warily, I crack one eye open. I can see...an IV tube stretching from my arm to a pole, pale blue walls in the off colors only hospitals ever have, and a brawny, tattooed arm next to a rib cage wrapped in layers of gauze.

I know those tattoos. I know that skin I’ve traced lovingly again and again. I know that arm that’s wrapped around me so many times, and that fear vanishes in a heartbeat when I know as long as he’s with me, I’m safe.

Landon.

It’s his hand in mine, clasped tight. A reassurance that pins me to earth and tells me I’m very much alive. As hard as it is to believe.

I open my other eye, just watching him for a moment. He’s sitting shirtless in a chair next to my hospital bed, his waist bandaged and a few bruises darkening his skin. There’s an oddly naked expression on his face, vulnerable and lost and heavy, fear etching lines around his eyes and exhaustion casting shadows in the beautiful hollows of his cheekbones.

“Come on, Reb,” he whispers, pressing his mouth against my knuckles. “Come on.”

“Why?” I manage to croak out around my dry throat. “We going somewhere?”

He jerks his head up, eyes widening. He stares at me, and I have a second or two to feel the hammer-sharp thudding shock of faint tears glimmering in his eyes before he’s on his feet, gathering me carefully to him, burying his face in my hair and kissing me over and over.

“Kenna, fuck,” he gasps raggedly. “Kenna, I was so worried.”

I manage to lift my arms, clinging to him weakly. “Landon. We're fine now.”

I can't believe I'm saying those words. We really are, aren't we?

Relief floods through me. This is real, and I’m really okay.