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I blinked, still feeling him everywhere, my mouth swollen and raw from his kisses, my body aching from his sudden absence.
“I can’t do this. We can’t do this. Fuck.” He carved a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Shiloh,” he said, his tone gritty.
“What? Why? What is happening right now?”
But Ronan was already reaching for the door. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
Feeling as if I were in a bad dream, I watched Ronan get out of the car, shut the door, and walk heavily to the shabby complex without looking back. He went up the stairs to the corner unit and vanished inside.
The rain came down steadily, the windshield fogged from our kisses. It was reminiscent of Mama’s cigarette smoke. The gaping pit in my stomach reminded me why I don’t let anyone get close. Because of that feeling. That hollow, hopeless feeling of sitting alone and watching a door close between me and what I wanted.
Stop it. It was only a kiss.
Except it didn’t feel like only anything.
Tears blurred my vision. Or maybe it was the rain. Because I didn’t cry. Not over a guy. Not over anything.
I turned on the windshield wipers and drove away.
Chapter Thirteen
“Fuck me,” I muttered and slammed my door shut behind me. I crossed to the kitchen in two steps and grabbed a bottle of beer from the nearly empty fridge.
I could still taste Shiloh—the sweetness of sugar and strawberries and her own clean warmth beneath. Kissing her was better than I’d imagined. My entire body had woken up, wanting her so goddamn bad I could hardly keep my hands from tearing at her clothes. To get at more of her skin, the heat of her…
I bit out a curse and took a long swallow of beer.
They followed us.
Outside the doughnut shop, it was Frankie Dowd and Mikey Grimaldi I’d seen leaning on Mikey’s white Jeep Rubicon parked in front of the burger joint. They’d nudged each other, watching us, smiling in a way I didn’t like. With an agenda. And then they did a drive-by as Shiloh and I went at each other in her car.
“Because they fucking followed us.”
If it were only Frankie and Mikey, I wouldn’t have given a shit. I could beat their asses one at a time or both together. But Mitch…
This is who you are. The criminal…
Outside my apartment, I heard a metallic scrape and footsteps. I strode over and threw open the door, ready to go, Mitch Dowd or not. Instead, I scared the shit out of Louis Maroney from 2F. The wiry, middle-aged guy shrank at my menacing glare.
“Rain’s pretty bad. There’s a leak in my ceiling so I was putting in a maintenance request.” He nodded at the metal box affixed to my door. “But it can wait…”
“No, it can’t,” I said. “I’ll handle it.”
“Thanks. Uh, thank you,” he said and practically ran back to his apartment.
He was right; the rain was coming down hard now, but I needed to wash Shiloh off of me. Kissing her had been a mistake. Taking what wasn’t mine in one reckless, selfish moment.
She wanted you too, I thought, remembering how she’d silently dared me to kiss the sugar off her mouth. How she’d been in the car, straddling me, grinding against me…
Didn’t matter. Frankie’s knowing sneer reminded me who I was. What I could bring right to her doorstep.
I threw on a cheap rain jacket and went to the locked shed out back. I found a few decent pieces of plywood among the rough materials Uncle Nelson salvaged from other jobs. I grabbed nails and a hammer and set the tall ladder against the side of the building.
The rain was relentless and showing no signs of stopping. I climbed up one-handed and hurled the plywood onto the roof ahead of me.
In one of the better foster homes I stayed at when I was a kid, we watched movies on Friday night. Forrest Gump was Janet—the mom’s—favorite. I trudged across the roof, stepping over broken or missing shingles, the wind and rain buffeting me, and thought of Lieutenant Dan in that movie. How he’d dared God to finish him off during the storm that battered Forrest’s shrimp boat. Because he’d lost everything.
“Go ahead,” I muttered under my breath as I struggled over the slick shingles beneath my boots. “I fucking dare you.”
