The lie I need to wash myself clean of.
I hold my breath and release it, praying I don’t destroy the heart of the only man who’s ever felt a shred of anything for me.
“A few weeks ago—” I start, immediately second-guessing myself, my motives.
Who gains a thing by me confessing what happened between me and Ryder? More important, who loses something? I can kill a relationship that’s barely had time to flourish into something solid, something good. I can abolish a friendship that’s lasted years, bulldozing it into something resembling war.
Brock stares at me, his eyes patient. “A few weeks ago, what?”
My pulse thunders, creating a terrifying rhythm of its own, one I’ve never felt. Another car horn sounds, causing me to jump. My breath snags in my throat as I look over my shoulder at the pissed-off commuter. Shaking, I bring my gaze back to Brock’s.
But this time when my eyes catch his, the endless sincerity in them tells me I’m fooling myself. This man stole a piece of my heart the day we met, and though I have no way to gauge the emotions spurring through me, the overpowering feeling that I can’t imagine taking another breath without him in my life must be love.
The part that terrifies me the most, making me freeze over, is that my feelings for Ryder border on identical.
Who’s toxic to whom now?
Worse . . . how’s that even possible?
Though the forbidden thought has snuck into my diseased skull, I haven’t had sex with Ryder. Surely I can’t love him. Love’s born of sharing your body with someone, the outer shell harboring the demons hidden beneath your hideous surface.
Right?
But if that theory were true, I’d have fallen in love more times than the average first grader can count. Numb, hollow, and broken, I’ve slipped from both seedy and rich beds smelling of meaningless sex without feeling like I was in love. Leaving every emotion tangled in those soiled sheets, I never looked back.
Is love built from human sentiment alone, the deadly feeling entrapping you in a series of shared moments between two vulnerable souls? Do slices of deep conversations, unspoken words, and stolen glances count? Do those small acts, tiny specks of laughter, unshed tears, and belly-dips grow the foreign feeling, morphing it into what can drive a person insane?
Not knowing if I’ll ever understand the difference, I take a deep breath, my pulse thudding as I decide that what I feel for Brock merits attention. “I think I love you too, Brock,” I finally whisper, sickened that I’m flying into this relationship on the evil wings of untruth. I’m dirty, the reality of what I am—what I stand for—unsettling me with each passing second.
Though he remains silent, Brock’s expression is strewn with devastation. I’m clearly nothing but poison to him and Ryder.
I shake my head, feeling like I’m about to lose my lunch. “I’ve never been in love,” I explain, my voice riddled with confusion. “I . . . I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like. All I know is that my stomach twists, in a good way, when I think of you, of us. It also twists in a bad way when I think of never being near you again.”
I place my hand on his jaw, hoping I can get him to understand the inner workings of my mind. He tenses, and I lean over to kiss his cheek, leaving my lips there as I continue.
“When we have sex, it’s not just sex for me,” I say. “I feel you everywhere. In my thoughts, my heart. I’ve never had that before. You might be fucking me, but you take your time with my body. That makes whatever I’m feeling for you that much stronger.” I slowly pull back, watching the late afternoon sun slant through the window against his face. “I don’t know what these feelings are, but I know they scare me too.”
Brock pulls to the side of the street, his voice gentle as he slips his fingers through mine. “You wanna know something, baby girl?”
I nod, my breath hijacked by his mouth on mine.
“The things you just described are pieces of falling in love.” He glides his tongue across the seam of my lips, coaxing them open.
Heat paints my cheeks, spreads through my muscles, and colors my heart as he kisses me deep, hard, making sure he steals what little breath I have left along the way.
“And as tiny as those pieces are, I’ll take whatever I can. Just knowing you feel a fraction of what you said will keep me fighting for you. Fighting for every one of your thoughts.” He kisses my forehead, his touch gentle as he drags his fingertips through my hair. “I want every single memory you own from today on to include me, and nothing will stop me from making sure they do.”
Without words, I beg him to devour me in every way he knows how, in every way he ever has. He sees the unspoken urgency in my gaze and, remaining silent, he merges into traffic and drives toward his place. The promise of what I want, what I need, hangs on every breath he takes as the realization that I’m in love, that I’ll never look at life the same way again, strips away the last bit of steel encasing my heart.
CHAPTER 11
Ryder
BLITZED.
That’s my goal tonight.
Sitting at the bar in Ram’s Head Tavern—a local joint in the heart of Annapolis—I throw back a shot of tequila, chasing after a hard buzz before Amber and Brock show up.
It’s been a little over a month since I’ve tasted Amber’s sweet lips, felt her soft body in my arms, and heard her lusty little whimper. But Christ if it hasn’t felt like a fucking lifetime’s passed.
“You ready for another?” Lee shouts from behind the bar, his voice pitching over the live band cranking out psychedelic soul music. “It looks like you can use a few more.”