Page 6 of Samhain

She balked. “What?”

I snorted and shook my head. “You know, if you need someone to tie you up and turn your ass pink, all you have to do is ask.”

I thought I had her speechless, perhaps flustered and embarrassed. Then she shocked the fuck out of me and said, “Bold of you to assume I’m not the one tying the knots.”

She gave me that classic Washington stare and walked back toward our stuff.

The visual that went through my mind was downright despicable. Me, on my knees in front of her, a collar around my throat, my mouth open and ready to service her. Ivy, a crop in her hand, thigh-high leather boots, all that red hair in a mane around her head.

Good lord.

I’d never been one to let something like that go. If it were any other girl, I’d march my ass up to her and demand she put her money where my mouth was, but Weeds? Well…

She was millions of miles out of my league, and even if I became the richest man on the planet, she always would be. It wasn’t only that I was intimidated by her. I didn’t deserve her, and I couldn’t have her, so I kept my distance.

I forced myself to go home with random chicks, and I closed my eyes when I slid inside them, picturing the way Ivy’s mouth fell open into that perfect pouty O, or the way her hair looked in the sunshine, or the way her skin turned that delectable shade of rose when she got flustered.

When I finally got her alone in my dorm, we matched in every way. There was nothing—I do mean nothing—that Ivy wouldn’t do as long as it was with me.

Like I said, I believe in firsts. I may not have been the first person to be intimate with Ivy Washington, but I was the first person with a cock she let inside her body, the first guy she trusted with her privacy and soul.

My love with Ivy was unmatched by anything I’d ever known. It was the deep down inside kinda love, the stuff that kept me up at night wondering if I was making the right choices. Would I be able to leave her when the time came? Would I really be able to walk away from this? From her?

I had four years to figure it out, and in those four years, I tried not to worry about it.

But you know what they say about the best laid plans…

And in my case, my downfall started with a flight to Ireland and a severely fucked-up trip through the woods.

2

Miri

AGE EIGHTEEN

I almost died when I was fourteen.

Or perhaps I did die and rebuilt myself from the ashes like a phoenix, hell-bent on seeking revenge for those who had been taken from me.

I didn’t remember much from that day, the worst day of my life, and many therapists would say my brain intentionally blocked it out. I was in the back seat, ducking down on the ground to keep the photographers from taking pictures of me. I didn’t like seeing myself in the magazines. I didn’t like it when they said things about me.

“Drive faster,” my father shouted.

“Gerald,” my mother said. “We’re already going too fast.”

“We can lose them,” he replied. I sank down farther, my hands over my ears, terror in my chest. I hated the people who chased us. Why couldn’t they leave us alone?

The sound of the wreck haunted my nightmares, the sickening crunch of metal on metal as the car hit something hard and impenetrable. The world went topsy-turvy, and much of what happened after that was darkness.

When I came to, I lay in the grass ten yards away, staring into the lifeless gaze of my mother, hanging upside down in the car, her head bent at a wrong angle.

I wanted to cry.

I wanted to scream.

I wanted to yank them from the twisted cage and pray to a cruel, merciless God to bring them back to life. Just bring them back. Unconsciousness took me again, and the next thing I remembered, I blinked awake in a hospital bed. I had minor injuries and a concussion, but other than that, I was relatively fine.

“How’d you get out of the vehicle?” a policeman asked.

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