Page 55 of They Break Beauty

Him touching me—even if it was just my hand—really hadn’t helped matters.

And those enthralling blue eyes of his burning so intensely into mine just added a whole other level to it all.

It was why I’d excused myself claiming I needed the bathroom.

What I had really needed was to take a beat in order to get a fucking grip.

I stepped out of the bathroom after spending what had amounted to fifteen whole minutes just leaning against the stall wall trying to get myself in check and trying to figure out how to stop Levi and take him down without giving him what he wanted and letting him break what I’d worked so hard to create.

A new me.

A new life where the past simply didn’t exist to me at all.

But every time I came into contact with him, even via text, I felt him smashing up against that and trying to tear it all down.

That was why, as I went to peer around the corner back at the main area of the bar, I stopped myself.

While it had actually been nice to hang out with Colton and have somebody to talk to and everything with Chloe still away, there was too much baggage there for it to be more than an one-off. And I didn’t want to risk facing off with Levi again.

I couldn’t trust myself with him.

“You’ve never met anybody who could understand what you went through back then. Until me. I was there. I know, Brianna. And I know how to make it better, to give you what you need without triggering you.”

Those words of his had been haunting me ever since he’d spoken them in hot words at my ear.

Because, as much as I really wanted to deny it and just shake them off, they were true.

All too true.

And I didn’t want them to be.

I didn’t want that to be the case at all.

It couldn’t be.

Shaking my head vehemently as if that could dispel it all, I spun and rushed out through the rear emergency exit.

Thankfully, as I stepped out into the back alley it was well-lit just like the rest of Stonewell tended to be at night. Probably with it being a college town. In a bid to help out drunk college students milling about at night and trying to find their way home.

I made it halfway down the alley, taking the roundabout route to the parking lot where I’d left my Charger, when that comfort was suddenly ripped away.

The lights went out.

A chill ran down my spine and I felt that familiar panic start to rise.

No. No. Stop.

I blinked a few times, both in an effort to try to push it away and to also acclimate my vision to the sudden darkness.

I was able to see my way forward. Just not anything else around me.

I continued walking, hurrying my pace.

And that was when I heard it.

Footsteps.

Heavy footsteps moving at a determined pace.

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