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“What happened?” he asked soberly.
Despite our words to each other only an hour ago at the diner, his presence suddenly made me feel less alone. I looked up at him, blinking through my tears. My eyes swam; I couldn’t focus. Another huge sob wrenched my chest. His jaw tightened, a ticking muscle showing his emotion, before he stepped back and pulled me toward the bike.
“Here, get on,” he instructed curtly, tugging a helmet over my hot, blotchy face.
The sound of my sobs was deafening inside the helmet.
He got on the front of the bike and guided my arms around him, urging me to hold on tight, and then he was moving, rolling us carefully forward before accelerating. We shot off in a spray of gravel, just as the front door opened and my father appeared. Cayden didn’t slow, he simply rode off, taking me with him.
We hit the winding roads outside town that led toward the Anderson mansion, curving around cliffs that overlooked the sea. I held on and let the excitement of the ride soothe my tears. I took a deep breath, and then another one. It helped a little, but knowing I had to go back home soon and face my parents only set me off again.
We rode for nearly an hour before Cayden turned us off the road and right through Beckett’s fancy gated property. He stopped and took my helmet off and then his own. As soon as the rumble of the bike died, the silence screamed in my head.
“Get cleaned up before you go home looking like you’re at your own funeral,” he said flatly. “Follow me.” He turned on his heel and walked away.
The house looked dark and uninviting. I followed Cayden.
He took me to the pool house. Inside was softly lit, and the blinds were all drawn. As soon as I stepped through the door, the reality of the horrible, ungrateful things I’d said to my parents crashed over me again, and the sobs escaped once more, sounding like they were being ripped from my very soul.
Cayden tensed, whirling around and reaching for me before I could sidestep. He pulled me into his chest in a tight embrace.
“Shh, Freckles. It’s okay.”
His soft murmur only made me cry more. He held me firmly as my emotions raged. There was pain and guilt over hurting my well-meaning parents, and then there was a sickening sense of relief at having finally spoken my mind. All of it stormed inside me, making it hard to breathe.
“It’s okay, I’ve got you…you did it. You were brave, and now, it’ll all get better.” Cayden still held me tightly, one hand running up and down my back, giving me comfort that I didn’t want.
I tensed in his arms. “This is all your fault, don’t you dare comfort me when you did this,” I snarled at him, wriggling to get out of his strong grip. I only managed when he loosened the cage of his arms. I leaned back and slapped him hard. The sound rang out in the small room.
“I don’t want comfort from you, you fucking lunatic. You want to hurt me and then kiss it better? What kind of twisted psycho are you?”
“The very same kind as you, it turns out. The one who tried to destroy my future and then gave me the strength I needed to win the game all in the same few days. We’re the same, Lily; fucked up, twisted liars, cowards through and through.”
“No, I’m not like you,” I ground out and pushed his chest as hard as I could. His hands were still fastened around my hips like pincers, and I couldn’t shift them. “I’ll never be like you – I’ll never shoot first and ask questions later. I’ll never just write people off and refuse to listen to them.” I was crying again and shoving hard at Cayden’s chest. When he failed to budge even an inch, I settled for hitting that huge, muscular chest. I pounded it with my balled-up fists so hard that the reverb shook my arms.
Cayden held me fast, unmoved by my blows. “I’m a monster, a nightmare, I know…tell me how terrible I am, if it makes you feel better.”
“No, it doesn’t make me feel better. You don’t make me feel better. I hate you,” I spat. My tears had felt like a bottomless well, but struggling with Cayden, trying to escape him, was wearing out my strength.
“I know, Bug.”
I landed a particularly striking blow and gasped as my hand throbbed. He yanked me closer then, somehow backing me against the wall at the same time. He trapped my hands between us, and his hard body pressed into mine. His eyes were intense, staring down at me with all the same emotion as the locker a room a week ago, when he’d accused me of breaking his heart.
“If it makes you feel any better, I hate me, too.” He cupped my cheek.
My skin burned where he touched me.
“If it helps at all, know that no one, you included, will ever hate me as much as I hate myself.” He ran his thumb under my eye and wiped away the stinging salt. “Does that make you feel better?”
My head was shaking before I could stop myself. “No. It’s too sad.”
My murmur was faint, but he caught it.
He leaned in, his hot breath blowing over my wet skin. “You are the only person I’ve ever met who’d feel bad for me even after all you know about me, and after all I’ve done.”
“So what? You think that makes me as fucked up as you?” I challenged, but my words had lost their steam because he was looming over me, pressing against me in all the right places, and his eyes were locked on my lips like they were the most beautiful things he’d ever seen.
No one had ever looked at me like Cayden West did, and I suspected that no one else ever would. Just him.
