Page 28 of Heathens

As I entered my cottage and shut the door behind me, I let out a deep breath that I didn’t even realize I’d been holding. My mind raced, and my body still buzzed with the energy from being near Locke. I couldn’t stop thinking about the way his body had looked as he worked out, or the way his hand had felt on my lower back as he’d helped me into the car.

I needed to distract myself, so I decided to take a shower. As I undressed, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and cringed at the sight. My hair was a mess, and my face was flushed, giving away my embarrassment. I stepped into the shower and let the hot water wash over me, trying to clear my mind of all thoughts of Locke.

But as I closed my eyes and let the water cascade down my body, I couldn’t help but imagine Locke being in the shower with me, his hands on my body, his lips on my neck. I shook my head, trying to clear the image from my mind, but it was no use. The more I tried to push it away, the stronger the desire became.

No! No! This was Locke! An impossibility. A never can be.

Yes, I needed to distract myself, and luckily I had just the thing to do so.

The Hunt.

I needed something. I had to focus on anything else besides the man who was controlling every single thought of mine.

He was the one who had been warning me about danger. But if he only knew that the real danger was me. Me and my poisonous thoughts.

Chapter 13

Locke

Leaving Storee alone in her cottage after driving her home this morning was damn near impossible. I wanted to stay and watch in the distance like I had done so many nights before. But the island was full of people lingering about, and there was no way I wouldn’t get caught as the creepy stalker in the forest that I was. Trying to get her out of my mind all day was no easy task. All I could think of was her and the way her perfect ass had looked as I took my belt to it last night.

She needed to know I was a man to be feared when crossed, but had I gone too far?

Would she learn from what happened or only rebel more? Had I pushed her away?

I threw my reading glasses down onto the top of my solid mahogany desk, pinching the bridge of my nose hard. My eyes settled where they always did when I gave them free rein—which wasn’t often in my busy life running companies and acting as one of the operating managers of The Vault.

It was the picture of Gabriel, my best friend, and the family I had become part of. We were all posed around the table during a vacation.

Since we all adored the snow, we’d taken a trip in the middle of the winter one year. We spent our time racing each other on snowmobiles, skiing down the mountain through inches of fresh powder, and traversing the slopes on snowboards. But we’d also taken a couple of days and gone down to the cape, thoroughly enjoying the fact that we practically had the place to ourselves. I had taken my thirty-five millimeter on our walks and had gotten some great shots of the sea, and even better candid photos of Storee as she stared off into what she called heaven.

Next to the picture, I also had a picture of Storee with the ocean highlighting every delicate and beautiful feature she had.

I had been teasing her unmercifully about how bundled up she was, so she’d knocked down the hood of her jacket, and I had caught her at a moment I always thought of as most herself—turned back toward me, away from the sea, her hair streaming out behind her, a big as life grin on her face that made me ache to smile back at her—even years later.

I was sick of feeling the way I had since Gabriel’s death—cold and empty and lonely. I missed his friendship, but I also missed the sense of family I’d had with him and his daughter. It was even getting to the point where I was sick of work, which was absolutely unheard of for me. Rising in power was everything I strived toward. Or at least it had been.

I was also sick of the guilt.

I should have saved Gabriel.

I shouldn’t have let him die.

And I sure as hell shouldn’t let his murderer go unpunished.

But I was a flawed man in so many fucking ways.

Where did I even begin to redeem myself?

I’d always been a loner. Like Storee, I’d also lost my father to murder. I’d grown up with my mom as a single parent. I had ended up having to spend an inordinate amount of time with the wrong kind of people trying to prove myself in the underbelly ofthe world for the sake of my father’s memory. I knew I was quiet and serious even from childhood, and it wasn’t until I grew up and filled out that I began to get much in the way of attention from anyone else. Once my shoulders began to broaden and my voice dropped sexily, nearly every girl in school ran after me.

But I had none of it.

I’d seen my mother’s battle, working herself to the bone to run a struggling household with only the help of her young son, trying to make a decent life for him and get the things he wanted. I had made up my mind early on that I was going to make enough money that my mother wasn’t going to have to work anymore, and I’d run and grow an empire to its full potential no matter how dirty my hands had to get to get there.

And my hands didn’t just get dirty—they got filthy.

But I was determined to be the man that my father and his father’s father would be proud of.

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