Page 70 of Bake the Town Red

“Yes, you are. You’ve always been a part of me too. So that’s a lie.” I fix him with a glare most people would run from. Not Ty. “An asshole for ever thinking you can get me out of your system. For deciding for both of us that we were better off apart.”

My insults don’t hurt him. He’s listening.

Our foreheads are pressed together. Two broken, furious people glaring at each other.

“Newsflash,asshole. You love me. Neither of us is going anywhere.” I tell him what he needs to hear. What he’s neededto hear for the longest fucking time. “I’m not just a part of your DNA. I’m everywhere. Inside your head. The air you breathe. Your blood is black and red and Dahlia and you love that too. You can try to rile me up. Be mean all you want. Tell me being together is a colossal mistake. Or I don’t know. If this is a sex thing, if this is you asking me to bite you while you fuck me, fine. Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter. Nothing will change a goddamn thing between us. You and me, this is fate. This is motherfucking it. Forever.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Tyler

She’s not wrong.

Smudges of her red lipstick paint the skin around her lips. Her nostrils flare. The flames of hell burn behind her blue eyes.

And she’s not wrong.

My cock isn’t any less hard for the truths Dahlia spits in my face.

“It’s you who’s never wanted to leave me, as much as I want you. Stop hiding, Tyler. Just stop it.”

Another second of her talking, and I’ll die. Another second of not kissing her, and my heart will stop beating.

A hand on her cheek and my lips crash onto her red-painted ones. Smearing more of her lipstick. Groaning when she bites on my lip.

“I am, even when I know better.” My words are chopped between kisses. I don’t believe them. I don’t want to believe them. “When I know you won’t survive this. When I’ll have tobe around you every waking second, and even then, I could still lose you.”

“Why?” she moans while I slide my hand to the snake in her neck. When I dig my fingers into her skin. “Why do you keep saying that?”

I bite her neck on the other side, sucking on her. Her skin smells of sugar, vanilla, and death. Hands at her waist now, my thumbs shove beneath her sweater, beneath her shirt. Finding her skin. She’s warm. Her stomach is made of curves and softness andhome.

“I’m losing my mind.”

I love you. I need you. I’ve never been as happy as I am at this very moment. Trapping you.

Torturing you.

And it won’t last. It can’t.

Pain. Regret. Sorrow. I feel them all. I’m so truly, epically sorry for what life and I have done to Dahlia.

None of those stop me as I brush my fingers on her stomach.

“You’re stuck in the past.” Lust and love drown some of the anger in her voice. “Let it go, Ty. Put it behind us already.”

“I’ll never be able to.” The button of her jeans slides through the loop without a fight. “Neither of us could. Bad shit will happen. There’s no running from that. We could never run from that.”

Her hands are in my hair, and I groan at how good it feels. At how insanely right it is to have her body pressed to mine.

“You’re here. You said you’ll save me.” Half-moan, half-growl. “Nothing bad will happen. If you stayed. Stay. Please, stay.”

I could do something about it, other than order her. Like slap my hand over her lips. Put my mouth to hers. Fill it with my cock. I don’t. I do the opposite. Poke the beast. I’m fucking unstable, and I need her to stop pitying me. I need more of her fight.

Every ounce of it.

“I don’t love you, Dahlia.”

“You’re a fucking liar.”

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