My Toxic Sequel. For some messed up reason, it fits him to a T. “Looks like you are.”
He takes my hands in his, rubbing feather soft circles on the backs of them with his thumbs, as if the slightest touch will break me. It won’t. And I don’t miss how his eyes dip down to my wrists. Angrily, I jerk my arms away from him, crossing them over my chest.
That he would actually look makes my throat feel as if it’s shrinking, my heart feel like there’s a clamp around it. I told him that I’d never cut myself again months ago, on the way to this very hotel, and the thought to do so hasn’t crossed my mind since—not even when shit hit the fan with Brad.
“Now that you’ve seen for yourself that I can actually follow through on my promises, can you leave?”
He groans, taking a step toward me. I back up into the bed, but he wraps his arms around me, places his hands firmly on the slope of my hips, and clutches me to him. “I never doubted you, Ky.”
“Don’t lie to me,” I say, my breath hitching on the word lie. “You can do anything else, but don’t lie to me.”
“Fine.” He bends slightly so that his mouth grazes my ear, and, as he speaks, the piercing in his lip rubs against the one in my cartilage. “I came here because Lucas wants me to bring you back to Atlanta.” But as he says this, his hands skim around to the front of my panties. “I came here because I know exactly why you left Brad in the first place.”
He starts to slide my panties down, but I close my hands around his wrists. “I’m not one of your groupies.”
“Far from it, Ky.” A smile crawls across his face. “I’d never tell them that staying away has been f**king hell. I’d never tell them I’m not leaving, no matter how much they order me to.”
“What if I make you?” I ask despite how the pit of my stomach curls into a mass of knots and tangles. I let go of his wrists and trace my fingertips along his square jawline, shivering at the contrast between his faint stubble and my soft skin. “What if I don’t want you here?”
“None of that what-if shit, Ky,” he says roughly, pushing me back onto the bed. As I scoot up towards the pillows, he follows, opening my legs in the process. “If you wanted me gone, you wouldn’t have let me in. You knew it was me before you even opened that door.”
By the time the back of my head bangs up against the faded headboard, my heart is beating as erratically as it had that first night with him. He stops in front of me, his body positioned between my thighs. “What if I ask you to leave afterward?” I demand. My fingers tremble as I drag his white tee shirt over his head. He takes it from between my hands and tosses it off the bed. It hits the curtain.
“You want to ask me to leave?” He lowers his head so that we’re nose to nose. His index finger glides underneath the thin spaghetti strap of my striped top, while his thumb strokes my collarbone.
“Maybe.”
“Then you go back to Atlanta and forget this ever f**king happened.”
But I shake my head. I don’t want to forget. “I can’t do that.”
He pulls my strap all the way down, sighing heavily when my br**sts push up over the fabric. He pauses only once, and that’s to make me a promise: “Then you go back to Atlanta with me.”
It’s not until late, right before we fall asleep with our arms and legs entwined that I ask him the single question that’s been burning in my mind since the last time we spoke: “What’s her name, Wyatt?”
“Who?”
“Don’t be stupid. You know who and what I’m talking about.” I can’t bring myself to say it out loud yet, though, because it still burns a hole into the deepest part of my chest.
He brushes strands of inky black hair out of my face. “Brenna.”
I roll out of his arms and onto my back, squeezing my eyes so tight that the tears don’t fall. “I don’t want to ruin things for you.”
“You won’t. When I’m with you . . .”
He doesn’t have to finish because I know where he’s going—I know how he feels because it’s the reason that I came to this hotel of all places—it’s the reason that I let him stay with me tonight. When I’m with Wyatt, I lose myself. “Do you think we’ll be able to fix each other?”
The bed squeaks as he rolls over. When I open my eyes, he’s propped himself up on his elbow and staring down at my chest. He touches the blackbird tattoo that’s a few inches above my left breast, running his finger over it. “What’s it for?”
“Changing the subject?”
“Just until you tell me what the f**k it’s for.”
“You let me down. And I wanted something to remind myself that I shouldn’t be that weak. That I should be careful.”
“Why do you have to say shit like that?”
“Because I promised you last year I’d be honest with you. Now it’s your turn. What’s going to happen to us?”
He kisses the tattoo and slips his fingers into mine, frowning when his gaze lands on my other tattoo, the one of my ex’s last name that circles my ring finger. I got it the day after I married Brad as an act of defiance. Now, I regret it like hell. “First, you’re going to get this f**king covered,” Wyatt growls. When I nod, he continues, “And no more blackbird tattoos. Fuck, get a bluebird or something, because we’re going to try again and we’ll get it right.”
I bob my head once more. “Okay,” I whisper. “I’m in.”