Page 38 of Taboo

“No can do, sweetheart.”

“I’m suffocating. Do you not see what you’re doing to me?” She starts crying before she completely loses her shit on us. “Noah. You have no boundaries. I wanted you to be like that when I first came to you, but you had to play your fucking games, leading me right into his arms.” She shifts her look to me as she continues to back away from both of us. Her hands flailing as she yells.

“Arms that made me feel safe and loved for the first time in years. Then you couldn’t fucking just let me be, you had to come at me with your mind fuck, telling me now. NOW you’re in love with me and you want to see what we can be together.” She walks toward Noah, stabbing him in the chest as she continues. “I was happy. I was safe. I felt loved. And then you changed all of that by reminding me what I’ve loved about you for all of these years.” She turns away from him, her shoulders falling as if she’s defeated. “You made me leave the security I had with Levi and threw me into this unknown shit. Now I can’t breathe because I can’t hurt Levi. I can’t handle how it feels when he’s not a part of my life now.” She turns toward me, her tears clawing at my heart as I watch her come undone.

“But I can’t stand going a day without talking to you either, Noah. No matter how hard I try to stay away from you, I can’t. Don’t you see what this is doing to me?”

We both stand motionless, taking in everything she says. “This is why I have to let you both go. I can’t choose. I’ll be miserable if I do.” She rushes out of the room, leaving us both speechless, frozen in our stance as we contemplate how the hell to proceed from here.

“I refuse to walk away, Levi. It’s Kali.” He speaks to me as if I’m not aware of who she is or how important she is to him. The problem is, he’s not remotely aware just how much she means to me.

“I’m not going anywhere. For the first time in my life, I’ve found love. I found someone worthy of my love and loyalty. If you think I’m going to walk away and make this easy on you, you have another thing coming.” He isn’t happy to hear my response. “Yet here we are fighting over her like she’s ours to fight over. It really doesn’t matter what we’re willing to do when she’s running from both of us.”

“You do realize we only have one option that will allow us all to get a fraction of what we want. Let me get the steaks and we’ll talk.” Not sure where his mind is going, I move to the bar stool to hear him out.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Kali

I need fresh air. Stepping outside seems to help with that, even though this is something I normally don’t do here. I’m walking down the driveway to get my mail, when I see the neighbor’s truck coming down the road. My heart sinks and I’m instantly terrified. I rush as fast as I can back into the house, only to be met at the door by both Noah and Levi.

They’re both on guard and ready to annihilate anything that’s chasing me, only to see there’s nothing running after me. “What the fuck is happening?” Noah steps outside to see the neighbor pulling up in his driveway. “Did he do something to you?”

“No. I just didn’t want to be outside with him.”

“This is what we’re talking about. You can’t fucking be here with this man living next door to you.” Levi spins me around so that his back is to the door and I’m between the two of them.

I look over Levi’s shoulder and I see the sicko standing on my porch. He must have a death wish coming up here with these two guys here. That or he’s fishing for them to do something again. “Look what finally decided to come home.” His disgust for me is obvious the second he opens his mouth. “Do you really think I don’t know you’re having me followed?” I look at him confused while he starts to move toward the steps.

“The next fucking step you take will be your last if it’s in the direction of this house. You need to get your ass out of here before I remind you why you should.” Levi is quicker on his feet than Noah is, but both of them meet the guy before he has a chance to take another step.

“I haven’t had you followed.” I try to reply to him in hopes that he’ll leave.

“I have,” Levi speaks up, his deep voice practically a roar as he dives for the guy. Noah jumps to help as well. They’re punching the guy over and over and I’m instantly worried they won’t stop before it’s too late.

“Please stop,” I begin to cry out, only to have them all ignore me. They both continue to pummel the guy into the ground and during all of the chaos of trying to get them all to stop, I miss a man running from the street to break it up.

There’s blood all over the neighbor and both Levi and Noah are taking turns getting a few more shots in before the guy from the street pulls Levi off of him.

“Greg, get this fucker out of here.” Levi pulls away from being held, his chest heaving from anger as he leans over, lifts then tosses the neighbor into the arms of the man from the street. Levi is bleeding on his cheek and after a quick glance over Noah, I can see that he is too. I just can’t tell how bad their faces are hurt.

“I’ll take care of him. You two get cleaned up. I may need you to come in to the station to file a report in the morning. But hopefully I have all the footage I’ll need. There’s already a warrant out for this asshole. I just need to take him in.” This Greg guy is huge and has no problem dragging the neighbor to his car.

I stand in shock as the two men I care about most glare at the man who has scared me for months. My heart beats rapidly as I come down from the panic that had me worried one of them would kill him and I’d lose them forever.

“Jesus. You both scared the shit out of me.” I move closer to them both, not sure who I should hug, so I don’t approach either. “Come inside. We need to get you cleaned up to see how bad your injuries are.” I walk into my bathroom to get the supplies I need to stop the bleeding. Neither one of them says anything as they follow me.

Both of them sit on the edge of my bed, facing me while I rush around the room to open the gauze and ointment so I can clean their wounds.

“You had him followed?”

“Yes. I told you I’d make sure you’re safe.” Levi melts my heart as he admits to ensuring my safety. I take an antiseptic wipe and touch both of them at the same time. Both injuries seem to be a small cut that will be easy to heal once the bleeding stops.

“Here. Hold this.” I get them to put pressure on their own cuts. The way they’re both looking at me isn’t fair, so I step back. Levi stands quickly, pulling me into his arms.

“All I want is for you to be safe and happy.” I smell his cologne even over the sweat and dirt on his t-shirt from the fight. Tucking my hands behind his waist, I give in and let him hold me. It feels amazing to be in his strong arms like this. I’m positive he’s holding me tighter than he has in the past.

Extra hands slide down my arms, surprising me instantly. “That’s all we both want.” I look over my shoulder and see Noah standing right behind me. I turn to face him and he wraps his arms around me too, both of them surrounding me with strength and love while I try to swallow around the lump in my throat.

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