Page 19 of Bound by Adoration

“If you weren’t kissing my woman, I wouldn’t have had to!” Raid clipped back.

“Would you two stop! I’m not a fucking piece of meat for you two to chew on,” Nyx yelled, moving to my side, then standing between Raid and me, looking at us both. “I’ll leave. Poof. Gone. You keep this shit up? I’m not dealing with it. I don’t have time to deal with it. No fighting.”

She turned to me. “Maybe I shouldn’t have kissed you like that because I’ve been dating Raid for a while, and I don’t want to be known as a cheater. You know me better than that. But I don’t want you going away either. I missed you, but I have too much other bullshit to deal with, and you two killing each other is not on the top of the list. So please knock it off. There isn’t time to sort how I feel or what the hell is going on in my head, so we all need to go with it until we can determine that my ass keeps breathing.”

“This is some twisted as fuck reality show,” Screech said, and Nyx smiled at him. He wasn’t wrong.

“Someone is gonna die,” Raid growled low. If it was intended to scare me, it didn’t. “Come on.” Raid turned, grabbed a bag from the back of the truck, and Nyx followed. Screech was behind them, then he turned to me with a small smile.

The fucker was right. There was going to be a knock down drag out fight.

Sad thing was, it wouldn’t be over Nyx.

She was just the catalyst that brought us together.

No, it would be from our past colliding with the present.

7

NYX

Raid led the way through the garage and through a door off to the side. I could hear the bootsteps of the two men behind me which was good.One step at a time.

My lips tingled from Liam’s intense kiss. Holy shit I’d forgotten how good his lips were. Judging from his reaction after, he felt it too. That incredible inferno that burned bright between us. But guilt racked me. I was dating one man and kissing another. Whore? Slut? No doubt what society would call it. But hell, it felt so right. Kissing Liam and Raid sent the same kind of tingles down my body.

The feelings between Liam and me had never gone away.

I might have been able to push it down to the recesses of my soul, so it didn’t hurt so much not having him in my life. The thought of never seeing him again crushed me every time he came to mind. Being in his proximity, I felt myself slipping back into the warmth of his eyes.

It had never changed. He would always be a part of me. Was it wrong for me to want to keep him here with me? He had a life in Atlanta and hell, I didn’t even know if I was going to stay here. Everything was so fucked up, and I hated them fighting. Not that I’d tell Raid this, but it was my fault for kissing Liam the way I did. Not that I didn’t want to, because hell yeah I did. It was the “cheating” guilt. That had to be a real thing, right?

Raid stopped abruptly, and not looking where I was going, I crashed into his back, my chin bouncing off his hardness. “Dammit. Why’d you stop?” I asked, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he breathed in deep, his shoulders rising, then he let out a plume of air and began walking once again.

I wanted to comfort him. Tell him it was all going to be okay. But if I did that, it would be a lie.

Nothing was okay.

Maybe in this moment semi okay, but I knew it was going to get bad. Those assholes wouldn’t give up. Hell, even having Raid and Liam in the same space for long wouldn’t be good, judging by their recent interactions. I wasn’t naive, just had to put things in priority. Right now, safety. Later, all the other shit.

Raid flipped a switch, and the lights blazed on. A tunnel awaited us with darkness at the end. It was creepy as hell.

“Um, Cujo? Where are we going? The house is that way.” I pointed to the right, thinking when we pulled up and laid out the floor plan in my head. Yeah, it was a huge house, and how in the hell it was supposed to be a safe house with all those windows, I’d never know.

“Trust me,” he said so quietly that I reached out and placed my hand on his shoulder, feeling the warmth of the sun still on it.

“I do, Raid. More than I should.”

He stopped, turned, and his lips were on mine, taking me deep and rough. I fell into his kiss easily. He felt like a warm blanket wrapping around me, keeping me safe in a cocoon.

“Fucker!” Liam growled behind me. All I could think was here comes round two. “Get your lips off her, and get moving.”

Breaking the kiss, I didn’t look into Raid’s eyes because I didn’t know what I’d see in them. Did he want me more now because of Liam? Because they had this rivalry?

That thought was a lead weight in my gut. That couldn’t be true. Could it?

“Kiss my ass, pretty boy,” Raid fired back.

“Glad to know you still think I’m pretty,” Liam said, and all of a sudden the tunnel seemed to be smaller. Like the walls were caving in with the thick feeling of the past making me even more curious.

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