Page 181 of Tempting Fate

The redhead lets out a derisive snort. “Like you can help me.”

Now, I’ve never professed to be the smartest man on the planet. Hell, I doubt I’d make it out of the bottom ten percent based on my recent decisions and my level of formal education, but even I know that when a woman who doesn’t belong to you is about to blow, you get your arse out of the explosion zone and leave the dumb motherfucker who’s incurred her wrath to deal with his fuckup alone.

“Righto, then. I’ve got my own shit goin’ down?—”

“You!” Shoving past me, Bebe stomps in the direction of the chapel. Lily steps into the bar and tucks her hair behind her ears, then wipes her face free of tears. She straightens her shoulders and stares at the woman bearing down on her with a face like a thundercloud. “How dare you?”

“Me?” Lily exclaims. There’s confusion in her eyes. “I have done nothing to you. You cut me off. I tried to keep in touch with you. All I ever did was try to be your friend.”

“My friend?” Bebe scoffs. “A real friend doesn’t sleep with her friend’s ex.”

The tiny redhead’s declaration rocks me back on my heels.

Was Lily the woman in Slash’s bed?

I watch with disbelieving eyes as Lily’s mouth drops open, and she shoots me a look that flays my heart to shreds. Rounding on Slash, index finger extended, I poke him in the chest. “You’re fuckin’ Lily?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“Bullshit.”

It’s there in his pale eyes.

The truth.

He’s touched my woman.

The animal inside of me snaps its leash, and I pounce. “You motherfucker.”

Unlike when we got into it at the cemetery, Slash doesn’t just meekly accept the violence my dark side unleashes. This time, after I shove him, he swings back at me. His knuckles glance off my chin, then his knee collides with my gut. Impervious to the pain, I sink my fingers into his throat, then sweep my leg behind his knee. His arse hits the floor. After stomping his arm when he tries to trip me, I kick him in the guts.

He curls in on himself.

I kick him again.

“Zeke!” Lily grabs hold of my arm. I shake her off and knock Slash back to the floor when he goes to scramble to his feet to come at me again. “Stop it. Please. Zeke.”

When I bend down to grab a fistful of his hair to hold his head up so I can give him the broken nose I promised him last night, Lily jumps on my back. She loops an arm around my neck and tightens her thighs around my hips. After jamming her thumbs into the pressure points at each corner of my jaw, she shifts her weight backward to force me upright.

Lips to my ear while she clings to my back, Lily croons sweetly to the monstrous side of my psyche, “Please. Stop. I didn’t fuck him. There’s been no one but you, I promise.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

I hook my arms under her knees to take her weight off my neck. When she loosens her legs and drops to the ground, I pull her around to face me. The colour sitting high in her cheeks and the way her eyes dart around my face yet never meet my gaze tells me that I’m not gonna like the answer to the questions pounding in my skull.

“Why were you in his bed?”

Lily’s throat works, then she replies, “We were watching Netflix, and I fell asleep.”

“That happen often?”

“Sometimes.”

Slanting a look Bebe’s way, I ask, “Why does she think you two are fucking?”

“’Cause she accused him of it when they were together.”

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