Page 172 of Hold Me Until Morning

The scumbag’s jaw clenched, and I could feel his fury sizzle in the air. His eyes darted between her and me, his overinflated ego unable to accept that she was standing up to him.

I stepped closer and casually tossed an arm over her shoulders, even though I was shaking like a bitch, so goddamn close to cleaving apart. “That’d be your cue to get the fuck out of here. If you hadn’t noticed, she doesn’t want you any longer.”

I raised my brows, taking him back to that day when I’d kissed the hell out of her.

A show that had changed everything.

Wrath quivered through his body, so violent I could feel it rupture the air. He warred like he was contemplating coming at me, though the asshole finally thought better of it and stepped back to jerk open his car door.

He stood on the inside of it, glowering at us, his jaw so tense I didn’t know how it didn’t crack. “I’m finished playing games, Hailey. This was your last warning.”

He slipped into his car and slammed the door shut, and he left a trail of squealing tires as he sped across the lot and out onto the road.

I curled my arms around Hailey as we watched him go, holding her close while the night pulsed around us in hot, sticky coils.

His car roared as he flew down the street, and I held her like that until his taillights disappeared and the sound of his engine faded away.

It wasn’t until then that Hailey sagged against me, fisting those sweet hands in my tee. “I’m so sorry.” She whispered against the spot where time was stamped in the middle of my chest.

I pulled her even closer and murmured against the crown of her head. “You don’t have a thing to be sorry for, Hailey. It’s my honor to stand for you.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

CODY

TWENTY-FOUR YEARS OLD

Cody leaned back against the trunk of the giant tree hidden in the recesses of Wagner Ranch, his eyes closed where he sat beneath the shade that did nothing to keep him from feeling as if he were getting burned at the stake.

Distraught.

Throttled by grief and the loss that he knew his mother was going to feel if she lost the house.

He’d put out feelers from one end of Colorado to the other, basically begging for extra jobs, even though he was already stretched thin. When that hadn’t panned out, he’d gone to the bank, praying on the few good acts that he’d committed in his life that he might be able to get his own loan, which he knew was foolish as shit, getting a loan to pay for a loan, but drastic times called for drastic measures.

The woman there had looked at him with regret when she’d told him he didn’t have the assets to back it up.

So there he sat, helpless, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes and trying to blot out the distress that consumed him. Hoping beyond hope that some sort of magic might befall him.

He froze when he felt the shift in the air, that stunning energy that always stopped him in his tracks beating into him from afar, making his heart hemorrhage and his pulse run rampant.

He slowly dropped his hands away and peeled his lids open to find her standing there.

Just off in the distance holding some kind of plastic container.

Crystalline eyes taking him in with this sort of worry that made him want to weep.

Or maybe he already was, the way he had to hurry to brush off the wetness that had slipped down his cheeks.

He’d thought he was secluded enough that no one would find him where he’d sneaked off to eat his lunch, but there she was.

A dream manifested.

He’d been having them the last month.

Dreams.

Forbidden ones.

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