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“We’ll work up to her spending nights with you, because you have no idea how to care for a toddler.”
He makes a vaguely agreeable noise after a long minute of narrowing his gaze on me. “But I won’t wait too long on that. Once I get settled in my new place, I’ll get her room set up and you’ll help me learn what I need to know.”
“Oh, will I?” I bite back. Not because I won’t help, of course I will, for Sadie’s sake. But because he’s being so arrogantly domineering.
“You will,” he says, leaving no argument. “There is a lot I want to fight with you about, but not that. Not her or my time with her. I won’t push you if you won’t push me.”
“Fine.” I sigh. “I’ll try. It’s hard though, when I hate you so much.”
“The feeling is completely fucking mutual, Cole,” he says, the corners of his mouth tipping up in amusement. “Speaking of last names…”
“I know what you’re going to say,” I tell him, holding my hand up. “Prove you’re in this for real. Prove you aren’t going to break her little heart, and then we’ll discuss her becoming a Wylder.”
“I’m never going to break her heart, Isla.” He squeezes my hand.
“You said that about me once, Cillian.”
10
CILLIAN
If I could go the rest of my life without hearing the hurt in Isla’s voice, it would be enough to say I lived a good life. Forget the NHL, the Memorial Cup, the possibility of the Stanley Cup at some future date. None of those personal accomplishments would compare to living out a life without the reminder of how I betrayed her.
Regardless of where we are now, or of how she’s hurt me and my relationship with my daughter; the Isla Cole I was dating at nineteen did not deserve what I did to her.
She’s still that young woman to me. I still love that person. There’s still the urge to haul her over my shoulder, drop her onto her bed, and sink so far into her that she’ll never be able to rid herself of me. I’ll never stop wanting to poke at her until she bites back because I know how that works her up. I remember how her body responds when it’s on that adrenaline rush she gets every time her temper is flared.
I recall how hard she comes, and I want to take her there again. And again.
My reaction to her is bone-deep, it always has been. Isla was the first girl to give me a boner. She was my sexual awakening. That’s not to say I haven’t learned a lot since being with her, I have, and I would love to show her. Even if only so I could take it all back.
So she can know I’m the best she’d ever have and then know she can never have me again. As much as I want to fuck her brains out, I equally want her to miss me the way I’ve missed her. To yearn for me the way I’ve yearned for the tiniest fucking scrap of her attention.
Fire and ice. I burn for her and want to freeze her out. Something tells me she feels the same about me.
“I am sorry, Isla.”
“I wish I knew how to believe that.”
“Maybe in time. After we become friends,” I say. After we learn these new versions of us and build a new foundation to build on.
“I don’t need you as a friend, Wylder.”
Need? Probably not. Want? Well, that’s a different story. She forgets how well I know her. Isla is as tortured by me as I am by her. While her eyes pierce me, her lips part slightly and her chest heaves with extra effort.
“No? Maybe you want something more then,” I goad her.
“Ah, you want to fuck, Cillian,” she asks, pushing back and making my blood move to my lap. “We could do that. I’m sure it would be fun. But it will never be more.”
Fun? Fucking her again would be soul shattering. Just then, a knock sounds at her door. She rolls her eyes and gets up to answer.
“Why is everyone so early today?”
“Hello to you too, babe,” a deep, amused voice says. I can’t see the intruder from where I sit, so I stand to move closer. “You okay?”
“Cillian is here.”
“Fuck. Do you need to reschedule?”
