Page 10 of Pretend it’s Forever

Her eyes began to flutter, and I realized she hadn’t passed out completely, but what the hell? One look at me and suddenly I was too fucking scary to take the next breath? As if the sheer idea of me caused people to pass out in fear or worry.

I was a damn menace, but I hadn’t thought I’d crossed that many lines.

“Sophia?” Flynn Cage said as he came forward and tried to take his sister from my arms. The worry on his face held so many layers. I knew the man wasn’t only thinking about the night we’d found Sophia and her girls on the floor. No…there were other memories layered beneath in which I knew he’d do anything to keep others from finding out about.

I pulled back, feeling oddly protective, glaring at the man. “Hold on, let’s make sure she’s okay.” The last thing I wanted was for Sophia to feel like I couldn’t stand the touch of her. No, that wasn’t the problem. In fact, with her pressed against me like this, it was the exact opposite problem. I wanted to keep her safe. To keep her near. And that’s how I knew I needed to hand her over. Quickly.

“You can let go of her. I’ve got her. She’s my sister,” Flynn snapped, worry in his tone, and a little confusion etched in. After all, I was territorial over most things—my job, my fights, my property, and anything that my gaze landed on like I was Mufasa in the Pride Lands. No, perhaps that was more Scar.

But I wasn’t territorial over Sophia. I didn’t even know her.

And from everything that I had heard about her, I did not want to know her. I was messy enough. I didn’t need whatever this Cage provided.

Her eyelashes fluttered once more, and she opened her eyes, before freezing in my grasp, as if realizing how close to the predator the prey had become.

I snorted at that, wondering how long I was going to be on this Lion King kick in my own mind. I didn’t hurt women. I didn’t stick with them either. I knew what happened when you gave yourself to someone and tried to form a so-called relationship. You failed at it. It didn’t matter how pretty she was, how honest her eyes looked, you would fail each other.

My parents had. And as evident with the Cage family news, the Cages knew it as well.

“What? Who are you?” Sophia asked, the fear in her tone annoying me. I hadn’t meant to put it there. She’d been through hell, and I had seen it firsthand, and I wasn’t about to add to it.

Flynn eventually got tired of me and pulled his sister from my arms.

“Sophia? Are you okay?” He glared at me over her head, as if asking me what the fuck was happening or what the fuck was my problem. Considering I didn’t know, I couldn’t blame him for that reaction.

I did not know why I had just held onto Sophia for dear life, or why I hadn’t wanted to let go.

That had been the problem the year before.

I’d seen her on the ground, blood pooling beneath her, her body shattered. She looked as if she’d been a marionette, dropped on the floor carelessly, her limbs in the wrong directions. That she had been trying to crawl towards her children, trying to protect them from the monster lurking in the light rather than the darkness.

I’d meant what I had said to her that day in the hospital. My regret was that I hadn’t killed him right then and there. It would’ve been justified.

The anger in my veins, and the darkness in my heart didn’t mean that I wouldn’t feel guilt over murdering a man who dared to do that to a woman.

I had failed in that aspect twice in my life now. Once with my father, and the other with Sophia’s husband.

The former had been a mistake, then again, I hadn’t realized what I’d been walking in on at the time. The latter? It had been a bit of betrayal to all of us that I had let that bastard continue to breathe afterward.

“You. It’s you?” Sophia said softly as she straightened, pulling away from Flynn. She brushed off her clothes, as if she were covered in dirt or lint, and I knew it wasn’t because I had touched her. No, she was embarrassed. That much I got. I could read people better than they thought.

At least most days.

“Me,” I said after a moment, my voice low. I slid my hands into my suit pockets and tilted my head, studying her.

I knew Sophia Cage. Even amongst all her names.

My sister loved the ballet, so I had seen Sophia on the stage more than once. And I’d been drawn to her not knowing why. And then I had become friends with many of the male members of the Cage family. And as any good Woods family member, I studied them.

Including the woman in front of me.

Those blue eyes felt as if they could see far beyond your soul, into your darkest secrets, and to every sin you had ever thought of. Her dark hair fell beneath her shoulders and had a slight wave to it as if it had been in a bun on top of her head earlier. She had cut it before but seemed to have grown it out again. The newest addition to her though, was that septum ring. A tiny little gold hoop that looked sexy as fuck.

I had grown up being told that women with tattoos and piercings were whores and delinquents who deserved whatever they had coming.

I had never gone out of my way to date only women with tattoos and piercings—no, I dated whoever the fuck I pleased. But Sophia Cage with a septum ring? Damn, maybe my knees were the ones about to go weak.

“Sophia, are you sure you’re okay?”