Take (Need #2)(12)

He lets her.

Any lingering doubt vanishes.

I asked him to leave last night and he ran to her.

He slept with her again.

She and I . . . we really are trading men back and forth.

It’s f*cking disgusting.

So disgusting that it’s making me want to cry.

I don’t want to trade men with her.

I don’t want Austin now that he’s been with her again. When he’s also been with her so many times in the past.

Don’t want Brayden, either. I don’t want any man that has touched, kissed, and been inside that f*cking slut.

She was just sucking Craig’s dick at a party last week.

“Let me up,” I tell Brayden, hearing how small my voice is.

His eyes snap to mine.

That quiet rage in him lances me.

I know what he thinks.

I don’t care.

I need to get away from them. All of them. This level of dysfunction is more than I can honestly endure.

My friends finally return. They slow down as they get closer.

“Brayden . . . I have to go.”

His jaw twitches, but he eases out of the booth anyway.

In my haste, I almost bolt without even saying goodbye to my friends.

Brayden takes care of that for me. “We forgot we have to meet up with our family.”

Good enough. I wave and somehow walk away from the table without looking in Austin’s direction.

Austin calls out my name.

I speed up.

“Leave her the f*ck alone,” Brayden snaps at him.

Tears rush to my eyes, but I blink them away. I won’t cry for Austin. I’ve already cried enough for Brayden, and he was once the guy I actually loved.

I know in the back of my mind that Brayden is following me, yet when he catches up with me outside and grabs my arm, I gasp. “Brayden! Let me go. You’re hurting me!”

He drops my arm, his breath racing, his eyes almost black in the shadows from the sun. Neither of us says anything, and he refuses to look at me.

He’s furious.

So am I. For being an idiot. For believing Austin wanted something real with me.

For entertaining the idea of trying with him even though I feel nothing when he touches me.

“Let’s go.” Brayden’s voice is hoarse. There’s chaos inside him, contained but potent. I feel it.

“I came with my friends.” Shit, how could I forget? I have no way home.

“I’m driving you.” He says it in a way that brooks no arguments. He’s already pulled his keys out of his pocket.

Logic dictates that I should argue. Going anywhere with Brayden is a bad idea. Being alone anywhere with him always, always leads to a lapse of judgement.

But he’s angry. More than that, I can sense that invisible injury in him, the one I picked up on last night when I sent him away in front of Austin.

Brayden’s hurting. Just as much as I am.

It’s too much to analyze. I’m not ready. I don’t know what to do with that. Instead, I find myself nodding.

Truth is, I’d rather get a ride home with him than with my friends. I can’t bear to pretend right now. Or worse, have to dodge their questions and come up with believable lies.

“All right. Let’s go.”

A double take from Brayden. For that one millisecond when his eyes meet mine, all I see is cold despair. A pain he’s trying hard to hide.

Even guarded, his green eyes seem to shimmer with so many things.

I ignore the tightness in my chest and follow him to his car.

And that’s when I realize what I’m about to do. I’m going to get in that car with over six feet of angry, tumultuous man. A man whose scent alone scrambles my brain.

A man whose presence alone reminds me of years of agony.

A man I still want.

Brayden lays his hand flat on the roof of his car. He still won’t look at me. “Kira, get inside.”

I don’t move, frozen in place by everything I feel. And, f*ck, right now I feel so much.

He’s here, pursuing me, and he seems to be willing to take hit after hit for me.

And none of that can erase an ounce of the resentment I feel when I look at his beautiful face. I’m f*cking choking with it.

“Kira, let’s go. Please.”

It’s that softly muttered please that does me in.

I can never forgive him, but I have no interest in hurting him any more right now.

I’m hurting enough for the both of us.

Silent, I get into the car. Brayden doesn’t say anything either. My body trembles with awareness. The silence on his end is so intense he might as well shout and rage at me.

He doesn’t. Whatever he’s feeling, he swallows it, keeps it locked inside himself.

Is he choking on it, too?

I take shallow breaths to avoid inhaling too much of his scent—futile. It surrounds me. Everything about him overwhelms me.

I chance a peek at him. His jaw looks hard as granite, his full, kissable lips pressed tight together.

It’s f*cked up how that restrained violence calls to me. Pressing my thighs together, I look out the window. I’m such a mess, and I have no idea how to even begin to make sense of it. Maybe I’m too young, too immature. Too f*cking inexperienced.

I hate feeling like a little girl who’s gotten burned from playing with the grown-ups, but it’s time to admit that’s probably what I am.