Page 73 of Still Beating

I scrub my palms over my face with a sigh. “I was happy, but I wasn’thappy. When you spend three weeks convinced your life is about to be over, you tend to do a lot of soul searching and reevaluating. Mandy and I were getting by, but we weren’t thriving. There was nopassion.”

“Passion? You’re throwing away fifteen years forpassion?”

“I didn’t throw away shit!” I yell back. “They were a good fifteen years and I have no regrets, but we ran our course.”

“Because ofme.”

“No, Cora, because I’m not in love with your sister anymore.”

“Stop lying!” she shouts, her voice laced with desperation, almost panicked. “I was right about what I said in the car that night. This is toxic. This iswrong. We shouldn’t even be contacting each other. Mandy’s life is ruined and it’s all my fault.” Cora starts to sob into her hands. “I can never forgive myself.”

“Corabelle, stop…” I try reaching for her again, but she pulls away like I’m going to burn her.

“Don’t touch me. I can’t even look at you.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s true, okay?” Her voice breaks, shuddering and quivering and full of defeat. “Something happened between us that last day. I felt it, too. And I thought it was just some screwed up defense mechanism that I’d leave behind in that basement… but dammit, Dean, it followed me. I still feel it.” She looks up, boldly finding my eyes. “It’s destroying everything, and Ihateyou for it.”

My hand cups her face as my heart constricts inside my chest. “Corabelle…”

She slaps my arm away. “Don’t call me that. Don’ttouchme. Just leave me alone.”

“You don’t hate me.”

“Yes, I do!” Cora’s pitch rises as new tears break through, then she shoves me backwards. “I hate you. I always have.”

“No.”

“Ihateyou!” She shoves me again, her palms planting against my chest, causing me to stumble. “I hate you… I ha—”

“No.” I grab her wrists and walk her back towards the far wall until she’s pressed up against it, shaking and crying. I cradle her wet cheeks between my palms and plant a kiss on her mouth, tender and soft. “You love me. You fuckingloveme, Cora.”

Her cry becomes a gasp as her body arches into me, and I kiss her again—just as soft, just as sweet. Then again, lingering longer, and again, until she curls her fingers around the nape of my neck and pulls me hard against her mouth.

Ikissher, and this time, there is no mistaking what it means.

There are no apologies.

Our lips fuse together with madness and chaos, missing and yearning, our tongues tangling like we’re starving for each other. I angle my head to taste her deeper, but it’s still not enough—never enough. Moans mingle together, becoming one, and I grasp her thigh, yanking it up and around my waist. So familiar… so instinctual. Cora sifts her fingers through my hair, then drags them down my neck, my chest, my abdomen, forcing a groan from the back of my throat. I trail my lips along her jawline, still christened with tears, my tongue tasting her as I find the curve of her neck.

Cora grinds her groin against my erection as her hands claw their way up my shirt. “I don’t love you, Dean.”

I kiss my way back to her perfect mouth, warm and soft, and she whimpers when I tug her bottom lip between my teeth. “Yes, you do.”

“No,” she breathes out, a strangled sob, like she’s begging for it to not be true.Pleasedon’t be true.“I can’t…”

“It’s okay,” I whisper, framing her head between my hands when she starts to twist from side to side, rejecting the very thought. “It’s okay.”

Cora yanks my face back down and our mouths crash together, teeth colliding, tongues hungry and violent. I grasp the side of her face, then force her jaw open by pushing my thumb between her teeth. She squeaks in surprise, and I take her mouth in mine, filling her with my tongue and tasting every inch of her. It’s sensual and erotic, and I can’t get enough. I’m fuckingdrowning.

She pulls back to catch her breath, crying out, as if she’s still trying to deny what seems abundantly clear. “This isn’t real,” she gasps, grazing her ankle up and down the back of my thigh. Her fingers are fisting my shirt sleeves with white knuckles, scared to let go.

“It’s real.” I kiss her forehead, then her nose, then her heart-shaped upper lip, as I intertwine our fingers and raise our hands above her head. I press our foreheads together, feeling the way our bodies meld so effortlessly.A perfect fit. I’m about to kiss her again, I’m about to lose myself to her mouth and tongue and glorious heat, when my eyes catch sight of her wrist peeking out of her long sleeve.

It’s been scratched raw, swollen and irritated, possibly infected.

Reality hits me like a bucket of ice water, and I grab her arm, cradling her wrist between my fingers and inspecting the damage. Cora tries to pull away, tries to erase what I’ve already seen, but I hold tight. “Corabelle, you’re hurting yourself.”

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