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Snap. Crack in half. Unleash the animal inside. However you wanted to describe it, it didn’t matter. The truth of the matter was, when I gazed upon this girl, this sweet, defiant, beautiful girl, all I thought was:mine.
Taylor breathed unsteadily as she gazed up at me, something other than defiance residing within those green depths. Lust, desire, the need to throw all caution to the wind and give in to what she surely had to feel… but in the end, she managed to whisper, “Let me go, Creed.” A plea for me to stop, to let her go, to end this—whatever this was.
I didn’t want to. I sure as hell didn’t want to release my hold on her and let her go, pretend as if none of this had happened. I was too far gone, too far past the point of no return. Taylor might struggle to return to some normalcy around here, but I didn’t know that I ever could. Things had changed for me tonight.
I met her stare with my own, trying in vain to get my breathing under control. Heavy, ragged breaths left me, my lungs working hard, as if I’d just been on the hunt. I had thoughts of pushing her to the bed, bending her over the edge and lifting that dress to expose her lower half to me. The things I’d do to her, the sounds I’d pull from her as she came undone on something other than my fingers…
Fuck.
It took everything in me to let her go. Absolutely everything. Every last ounce of restraint I’d built up. Letting go of her and stepping away from her was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do in my life—and that included any of the jobs I’d taken these last ten years.
Killing was nothing compared to resisting Taylor.
Though I’d taken a step back, though I’d released her, neither one of us moved beyond that. We stood there, for at least a minute more, staring at each other. Neither of us said a single word; I think everything we could’ve said in that moment was spoken with the expressions on our faces.
I didn’t want to leave her room, but I wasn’t the kind of man who could ever force himself onto someone else. It wasn’t who I was, not who I wanted to be for her. No. Something might’ve changed for me tonight, but I had to be patient. I had to let her see the light on her own.
As I stared at her, I knew: she’d come to me. She would come to me sooner or later, and when she did, it would be biblical.
So, in the end, I gathered myself and left her bedroom, not saying a single word more. I grabbed her door on my way out and shut it, giving her privacy. As I walked to my bedroom, I ran a hand down my face, my palm running against my stubble, and I let out a harsh sigh. I went to sit on the edge of my bed, leaning forward as I set my forearms on my knees, letting tonight’s events play on repeat in my mind.
A better man wouldn’t have reacted like that. A good man would’ve let them be, if that’s what Taylor had truly wanted to do.
But that’s the thing, I guess. I wasn’t a good man. I wasn’t raised to be a decent member of society. I’d been trained my whole life to take over when the time came, to become the Black Wolf; it’s why I’d left the life with Taylor behind. I was a hired mercenary, a criminal in my own right. A killer, a hitman, an assassin. Most members of the Guild were.
My hands clenched and unclenched as I sought to lessen the urges inside me. All night—and pretty much all day—Taylor had worked me up by refusing to answer my texts, by not telling me where she’d go tonight. To think, I’d gone out in search of her, just to make sure she didn’t end up in an alley somewhere, dead.
How quickly things had changed the second I’d seen her back here.
Would she hate me tomorrow? Would she decide she wasn’t comfortable living here, with me, after that outburst of mine? Or perhaps she’d pretend none of this had happened, and she’d try to go on as if I was nothing but the brother she told me I was?
Taylor was no child anymore, following me around the house with puppy dog eyes. I was no kid either; the world had shown me what darkness lay within it, and I had become a part of that same darkness, adding my own flavor to it.
I didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, or next week, for that matter. I knew one thing was for sure, though: I had to get out of this house and give Taylor space, let her come to the only conclusion she could on her own time.
What was the conclusion?
She and I… we were meant to be. Fate had brought us together once more, and I’d be damned if I let her slip out of my life again.
Chapter Eleven – Taylor
“Taylor!” Beth found me walking on the sidewalk between classes on Monday. She’d brought my bag with her, and she handed it to me. “You didn’t answer me all weekend, girl. I was kinda worried about you. How did it go with that guy?” She had a bag slung over her shoulder, and she adjusted it as she matched my pace.
“Um, fine,” I managed to say, swallowing hard as I remembered what Creed had done when he’d walked in on us. I ran my tongue over my lower lip, my cheeks blushing even though I mentally chided myself for it.
I shouldn’t be thinking of that night. Days had passed since then, and Creed had said not a single word to me, back to his cold shoulder routine. And, to top it all off, he was gone, out of town for a while on a job, which left me alone in his place.
That was so many different kinds of wrong. He was my brother. Stepbrother, but still a brother. I’d grown up idolizing him. I loved him the way you should love a brother.
But… but it’d been ten years. Neither of us were the same as we were then. We’d both grown, become different people. Just because I was old enough now to realize how attractive of a man he was shouldn’t mean anything.
“Fine?” Beth echoed. “What do you meanfine? If it was just fine, then it wasn’t good at all.” She let out a sigh, as if she was saddened on my behalf, for the lack of fantastic hook up sex.
“No, it’s not that. It’s just… I brought him home,” I told her, slowing my walk to a halt. I stepped off to the side; since it was between classes, the sidewalks were pretty full of other students. “I live with my brother.”
“I thought you said you lived with your dad?”
“I did—but something happened, and I had to move in with my brother.” As I said it, I hoped Beth wouldn’t ask a bunch of questions about it. Honestly, it was one reason why I liked her so much; she never felt the need to prod when it came to details about my life. “But, um, let’s just say it didn’t go well.”
