Page 114 of Unholy Obsession

I ruin everything.

It’s what I do.

I look around the bar. There’s a younger guy who looks about my age in the back corner, nursing a beer with several empties on the table, thumbing through something on his phone.

My stomach feels sour from the shots. It would be easy to walk back there and sit across from him. Make small talk until he got in a better mood, then ask him if he wanted a good time. I could probably get it done before Mads even showed up.

I squeeze my eyes shut and pull out my phone, staring at her message.

Why does she want to even meet, anyway?

I didn’t know she could be out and about in the daytime. That’s new. I try to distract myself by wondering about it, but my eyes keep sliding toward the guy at the back table.

I jerk my gaze back to my phone and text Bane instead.

Me: What are you wearing?

Me: I’m dripping wet, thinking of your huge cock. I want to tie you to the bed and milk you until you beg me for mercy.

I hit send and smile. It helps a little to think about how in control I am in those moments he lets me take the reins.

But it’s a short-lived feeling.

Because he doesn’t text back.

I just keep staring and staring at the phone and…

Nothing.

It’s just like when he didn’t look up at me this morning when I dressed all pretty.

Like an empty gulf is opening up in my stomach where moments before I felt full and happy. But now there’s just nothing but unbearable, crushing sadness.

And the itching. I slam my phone down on the counter.

“That kind of day?” the bartender says sympathetically, pouring me another shot. His sympathy’s not real. I know the look in the eye of a man who’s hoping to get laid. He probably gets off in an hour and is hoping to take me with him.

Bane’s the only man who’s ever looked at me with anything real.

Except he didn’t look at you this morning, did he?

He thought you were exciting at first, just like they all do. But you’re starting to wear on him. Maybe he’ll keep you around because, like a fool, he went and married you, and he’s an honorable man. He just feels bad because he fucked up when he was still just a kid, and like a good man with a conscience, he can’t let go of it.

But he’s good, loving, and caring, and I’m…

Thinking about fucking some drunk rando in the back of a dive bar off Main.

“Moira.”

My eyes close in relief at Mads’s voice.

FORTY-THREE

MOIRA

I spot Mads instantly.She’s the only person in this place who looks like she could both kill a man and file her nails while doing it.

“Bitch!” I launch at her, wrapping my arms around her like a clingy octopus. She stands there like a goddamnlamppost, stiff and unyielding, which only makes me squeeze harder.

---