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I tagged her hand and pulled her into me. “You loved taking photographs, baby.”
“You loved helping kids.”
Fuck. “It’s different.”
“No. It’s not,” she replied. “You’re avoiding your friends and family and helping kids who need you.”
“Need me?” I snorted. “You think I can help kids like this? Jesus Christ, don’t you get it? I’m damaged. I can never be around kids again. I’ll never have kids, Alina. I don’t want them. I’m not going to get that happily ever after and if you think that’s where this is headed, you’re wrong. It’s not. Not even fuckin’ close.” She pushed off me, her eyes hard and narrowed. “What? You don’t like hearing the truth? Well, that’s the truth. And going to pick out some cat isn’t going to change what this is.”
“What this is? What is it then, Connor? Tell me because I just spent a morning with you and it sure as hell felt like something.”
“It is something, damn it,” I retorted. “It will always be something. But you need to get your head out of the clouds. I’m not who I used to be. Never will be.”
She crossed her arms and glared. “Did I ask you to be?” she yelled. “Did I ever ask you to be anyone else than who you are now?”
“I fuckin’ see it.”
“No, Connor, that’s all you. You think everyone, including me, won’t accept you for who you are now. But it’s you who can’t accept it.” I glanced away, hands curling around the handlebars. “You say you’re lost? That’s because you want to stay lost. You don’t want to be found.” Then she said, “I’m not the same person either, Connor. I’ve changed, too.”
I straightened my bike, and started the engine. The rage pulsed, my head pounded. She was angry and Alina rarely got angry or raised her voice.
I did this to her.
Fuck, why the hell couldn’t I just disappear, leave her the hell alone, so she could get her happily ever after? “Make sure someone puts you in the cab later,” I said.
“Fuck you, Connor.” She spun on her heel and walked down the sidewalk. “You want to see me, then get un-lost.”
“That’s not a word, Alina,” I yelled.
“You’re in my world now, so I’m making it one.” She used my own words back at me from when we first met.
I sat on my bike staring at her walk away, engine vibrating beneath me, her words ripping through me.
It was the fuckin’ cat. Telling her I’d go with her to pick out a cat. Spending the afternoon between her legs. Licking her pussy, tasting her, sucking on her clit as she screamed and tightened around me.
It was all of it.
And yeah, it was fuckin’ something. But it sure as hell wasn’t us going to pick out a cat together. It wasn’t me dropping my girl off at work and telling her to have a good shift. It wasn’t getting up in the morning and slipping between her thighs then having coffee while we sat in bed snuggling.
It was me breaking into her house and destroying her kitchen. It was me punching the wall above her head. It was me fucking off when the rage was too much.
That was what our something was now.
I put my feet up and took off down the street with the rippling tension shifting through me.
Christ, what the fuck did she want from me? This was it. This was me.
Volatile. Irrational. Impulsive.
And yeah, I was lost, but despite everything I just spewed, I wanted to go with her to pick out a fuckin’ cat.
And if she wanted orange, I’d live with orange.Question 9: Swim or laze on the beach?PAST“TAKE OFF YOUR clothes and lean over the couch.”
I stood inside the door, hand clinging to the knob because my legs were shaking so badly. And it was for the simple fact I’d be able to escape before I made it all the way across the room.
No. Escape wasn’t an option. I had to do this. It was my last chance to help him remember.
The pool house was one large room with a couch, a king-size bed and kitchen. Connor sat at the island on a swivel barstool, staring back toward me. There were bullets laying on the counter and parts of a gun.
“Are you going to stand there or do what I tell you, bitch?”
My heart felt as if it were beating in quicksand, sinking under a thick sludge with his callousness.
Because Connor would never speak to me so coldly.
“Or would you rather suck my cock first?” He held the barrel of the gun in his hand, a cloth in the other.
“I… ah… .” Jesus, I had to pull my shit together before he kicked me out and my last chance slipped from my grasp. Carlos had his meeting with the Vault associate and Connor was leaving tomorrow. It had been a week since the last time I stood in the pool house facing him, but this time, I was here to do more than talk.
