Fractured (Deep In Your Veins, #5)(67)

It was a warning. “I don’t like the way you said that.”

“It’s not something you’d want to know.”

“I don’t expect you to tell me every little thing. But I can sense that this isn’t little. Tell me.” Instead, he drank the last of his second NST. “Butch—”

“In my vision, I was in bed with a woman.”

My lungs seemed to constrict with shock and hurt. Despite that my throat was painfully tight, I asked, “Do I know her?”

A muscle in his cheek ticked. “Yes.”

“Who was it?” I was torturing myself, really, but I had to know.

“Marla.”

“Marla?”

He slowly prowled toward me. “Not a lot happened in the vision. I was in bed, she was lying next to me—naked and asleep. And I felt…empty.”

Empty? Well that made me feel a teensy bit better.

“I didn’t understand why I’d have a vision like that. I didn’t understand why the f*ck that would be important enough for me to need to foresee it. But when I met her, it all became clear.”

Well at least one of us understood.

He seemed hesitant to continue, but finally he added, “She first came onto me the night you broke up with Dean. And I realised then that my vision was a warning that the decision I made that night would be pivotal. I could take Marla up on her offer and carry on as I was; having meaningless one-night stands, taking no risks. Or I could get my f*cking head straight and go after what I really wanted—you, even if that meant a relationship.”

“You’re saying you didn’t sleep with her?”

“I didn’t sleep with her—not that night, not any of the many nights she came onto me.”

The ache in my chest faded. So Marla was right; he had rejected her because of me. Huh. I was bitchy enough to feel satisfied about that. In my defence, she was a heifer who broke my Kindle!

He curled my ponytail around his fist. “Not once, not even when we first started, have I ever felt empty lying next to you.” Tugging me close, he kissed me. “Why are you so stiff? I didn’t touch her, baby.”

“Sorry, it’s just…the image in my head of you guys in bed together isn’t pleasant.” But it was my own fault that it was there.

“That was why I told you that you didn’t need or want to hear about the vision.”

“Still, I’d rather know. For me, no truth can be worse than a lie.” Not wanting him to regret telling me, I made a conscious effort to relax against him as I kissed him. “So I appreciate that you were honest.”

“You’re not gonna stew on this? We aren’t going to end up arguing over something that didn’t even happen?” There was a cautious note to his voice that was often present when we even came close to arguing. Every time we had the smallest dispute, I’d see the worry in his eyes. It was almost as if he was just waiting for the moment when I declared that I’d had enough and I was leaving.

Rubbing my nose against his, I said, “You have to trust me not to hurt you.”

“I don’t trust me not to hurt you. I won’t mean to do it, Imani. I never mean to.”

“We’re gonna fight, Butch. It would be unhealthy if we didn’t because it would mean that either we were trying too hard to keep each other happy or all the passion was gone.”

He frowned, not understanding. “But I want you to be happy.”

“And I want you to be happy, but not to the extent that I neglect my own wants and needs. The same should go for you. There has to be a balance.” I slid my arms around his neck. “There’s no right or wrong way to have a relationship. We’re still trying to find our way. Even when we find it, we’ll still piss each other off, and we may even hurt each other. But we’ll work it out and we’ll move past it.” I kissed him. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not like them.” Not like the others who walked away.

“I know.” He didn’t even need to ask who I was referring to.

“But you expect me to leave you.”

“I don’t expect you to leave. I’ve just never had anything that was important enough for me to care if I lost it. Not good at dealing with that yet.”

“Okay. But let me reiterate, I’m not going anywhere.”

His eyes bore into mine, searching. He nodded, apparently satisfied with whatever he found there. “Now you need to feed. Then I’ll drink a few more NSTs, and we’ll leave.”

And hopefully our talk with Joel would lead us in the right direction, or I’d seriously lose my shit.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN


(Butch)



Outside the grubby apartment building wherein Joel Sanders lived, Jared instructed Denny, Stuart, and Damien to scope out the place. There was a chance, though it was slim, that Marco had led us into a trap, the dick. We needed to be prepared for that. So Denny reduced his body to liquid, Stuart burst into molecules, and Damien went astral walking.

“If the guy makes good money out of what he does,” began Imani, “you’d think he’d live in a better place than this.” Her nose wrinkled at the stench of mould and cigarettes.

“He could afford it,” I conceded. “But then his neighbours would wonder where he got his money from. People who live in places like this don’t ask those kind of questions.”