Page 69 of The Wrong Heart

I don’t move. I’m barely breathing.

I just hold onto her so tight, I’m afraid I might break her.

But I’m more afraid she’ll break me first.

She doesn’t press any harder, though, she just lingers there, memorizing the shape of my mouth with her own. Melody grazes her lips gently across mine, inhaling a deep, tremoring breath, and applies the most delicate kiss to my bottom lip.

But before we can cross anymore lines, before she crashes through anymore of my steel walls, the lights flicker back to life.

Melody jolts back with a sharp gasp, her hand lifting as she presses her fingertips to her lips, like she’s in shock. She blinks against the harsh fluorescents with bright red cheeks, her straw blonde hair a knotted mess, and her expression… wide-eyed and mortified.

My chest tightens with lightning rage, and I ground out through clenched teeth, “Get off me.”

Her eyebrows dip, hesitation seizing her.

“Fucking get off me, Melody.”

Her own features grow taut and hard as she scrambles off my lap, pulling herself to trembling legs. “You don’t have to be such a jerk,” she bites out with a husky rasp.

“I don’t kiss. I’ve never kissed.” I move to find my own footing, internally scolding my dick to calm the fuck down.

“What?”

“I don’t fucking kiss, okay? I never have. Not once.”

Melody blinks at me through a mask of incredulity. “How is that possible?”

Smoothing out my t-shirt and ruffling my hair, I spare her a scathing glance. “I don’t particularly care for women, that’s how.”

Her eyes pop, and she repeats, “What?”

Jesus Christ.

What a fucking mess.

I don’t bother replying to her and storm out the door, practically kicking it open, kind of hoping the tornado is still lurking around somewhere so I can dive in, headfirst.

“Parker.”

Melody calls after me as I stomp up the staircase, but I quicken my gait and move to collect my tools so I can get the fuck out of here. A brief glance out her front window pauses my feet. “Shit…”

There are downed trees everywhere, one taking out a roof. Window shutters, glass, gutters, all lay strewn across the dusty street.

Debris, destruction, ruin.

I pace towards the window, my eyes taking in the wreckage as I scan her neighborhood, an eerie chill coasting across my skin. There’s an elderly woman wandering her front yard in a floral nightgown, looking completely lost, in a daze.

I feel Melody come up behind me, so I turn to her, noting the tears welling as she stares out in silent horror at the scene before us—a scene that looks like it came straight out of an apocalyptic movie set. When she lifts her eyes to me, misted and gutted, my heart stutters.

Her anguish blindsides me because I feel it, too, and I’ve never given a shit about anything before. Notreally. I do care about Bree, and I care enough about my dog to have had the decency to drop him off with her on my way over here, so he wouldn’t be alone during the storm.

But my sister’s pain has never beenmypain. Her heartbreaks and setbacks have never kept me up at night. I’m desensitized to other people’s misery because I’ve always been too wrapped up in my own.

Not now, though. Not right now while she gazes up at me with those wounded, green eyes, like her whole world is nothing but shambles and faded embers.

I feel it, too.

And it’s kind of a sickly feeling—a kick to my gut, a searing lump in the back of my throat. I want to cut it out of me. Reject it.

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