AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The possibility of tomorrow.
“Okay,” she relents eventually, pulling her sleeves down over her dry, cracked fingers. “If you go, I’ll go. But if they bring up the arson incident, I’m out.”
I smirk. “Thought that was an accident.”
“There’s a little intention behind every accident.”
* * *
Halloween fireworks are by far the worst tradition in King’s Trace, but tonight, it’s not their excessive explosion keeping me awake.
The incessant buzzing coming from the end table draws me from the sleep I’ve just fallen into. A vacuum of sound envelops me, my heart launching into my throat at the possibility of who the fuck might be calling this late.
Tearing myself from my pillow, I drag the back of my hand across my mouth and sit up, yanking the phone off its charger.
My stomach plummets, my heart stuttering at the name flashing across the screen for the fifth time tonight.
Gritting my teeth, I hold the lock button down until the phone powers off and toss it back on the end table, ignoring the stab of guilt lancing my chest. I already know I’m not interested in anything she has to say.
Fiona could be bleeding out on the side of the street and I wouldn’t go to her fucking aid. Not after tonight.
“Who was that?” Riley asks, appearing at the bottom of the staircase with a glass of water.
Apprehension flares inside my stomach, twisting like a sharp blade as I climb back up the mattress. “Nobody important.”
Even as the words leave my lips, I know they still aren’t true.
The problem is that Fiona Ivers is too important, and she knows it. Uses it to her advantage, like with all the calls, texts, and emails she’s bombarded me with since the funeral.
So, even though it’s possible she’s gotten into some kind of trouble with her date, especially since I still haven’t heard back from Kieran, it’s not my fucking problem. There are plenty of people around who’d kill for the chance to help the little princess out.
I gave up that role long ago.
Besides, deep in my heart, I know the truth. Fiona Ivers isn’t in danger.
She is the danger.
Riley goes to a window in the dining room, peeling back a dark curtain and peering outside. “Do people usually trespass on your property at night?”
“Sometimes, yeah. We live in a shit part of town, if you hadn’t noticed.” Shrugging, I flip through categories on Netflix, trying to find something I can fall asleep to. “They usually leave when they realize they’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Oh. Well, someone’s coming our way right now.”
Furrowing my brows, I push back the covers, anxiety flooding the chambers of my heart as the image pops up in my mind of the one woman who makes busting into my life unwarranted one of her annoying habits. Slipping into a pair of slippers, I clamber over to where Riley’s standing, peering through the sliver of moonlight as it illuminates the street.
A figure staggers up the sidewalk, pausing and staring at the house for several beats. Contemplating a decision, I assume, wringing her hands together. She releases her hold, dropping one hand to tap on her thigh in quick successions of three, a gesture my traitorous body recognizes immediately.
Fury ignites my blood, a wildfire spreading unencumbered. “Stay here,” I tell Riley, clenching my jaw as I sprint from the room, bounding down my narrow hallway and out the back door in record time.
Swinging around the house, I watch her creep up the porch steps, holding her side. Her tiny hand grips the railing for balance, and she winces once before planting her foot on the next step.
She’s mumbling, talking about her father needing to spend time with her mother and not wanting to bother him, and for a second, I’m genuinely concerned she might be having a stroke.
I launch forward without thinking, my body colliding with hers before I have a chance to fully comprehend what the fuck I’m doing. My hand flattens over her pretty red lips, hating how soft they feel against my skin, while my free arm wraps around her waist, pushing us up onto the porch so I can force her against the white siding of my house.
She squeaks in protest, trying to wriggle out from my hold, rubbing her ass against my crotch in a way that has blinding light flashing across my vision, despite the fact that I’m angry with her.
Bending down to the shell of her ear, I press against her skin, keeping my hand over her mouth. “I fucking told you not to come here anymore.”
Not in so many words, but I’d thought the implication was there, anyway.
She mutters something against me, the vibrations shooting straight to my balls. My cock stiffens against her as her rosy scent invades my nostrils, the swell of her ass a perfect cocoon to bury myself in.
When I feel her thighs clench, seeking some sort of purchase against me, it yanks me from the spell and I spin her in my arms, shove her back against the wall, delighting in the way her eyes widen to the size of gaseous planets.
Gripping her wrists in one hand, I pull them up and pin them above her head against the wall, watching her bite down on the inside of her cheek—her tell. As she sucks skin inward, I can tell the control she keeps wrapped so tight around her fingertips is slipping, dissolving into a puddle between us. Inhaling a deep breath, she steels her gaze against mine.
“I need your help.”
