Page 93 of With Love

I move my head to the side and scream at him.

“Owen, no! Stop!” I scream when my lips finally break free from his. “I don’t love you!”

He pulls his lips from my face and screams with a roar that I’ve never heard come from him before. It’s terrifying.

“FUCK!” He shouts.

“Owen, you’re scaring me,” I say quietly, as tears roll down my face. I try to shuffle myself away from him as much as I can, but he grabs onto my leg, stopping me and I scream.

“This is bullshit, Adrienne! You’re not supposed to be afraid of me! I went through hell and back to save you and what do I get? Nothing! All of the hard work and planning that I put in to get you out of Lock’s so you and I could be together and you still end up in his fucking arms. In his fucking bed!

His hand slips from my leg and I jump out of bed. He walks around the bed with each word and it has me backing up closer to the wall.

“Why am I the one who always gets screwed over for trying to help? It happened in Afghanistan, it happened at Lock’s, and it’s fucking happening again!”

Just as he is a few steps from reaching me, his face red with fury, his hands balled into fists by his side, he screams something that changes my perspective on everything.

“I thought that letter would seal the deal, but--” his shouting ceases immediately, realizing what he just said.

I stop cowering as soon as the words leave his mouth.

“What did you just say?” I ask him, my voice eerily calm.

“What?” He shouts at me. “Nothing!”

“What fucking letter?”

“No! You didn’t hear me correctly.”

“I heard you loud and fucking clear, Owen. You set Marshall up. You wrote that letter and blamed it all on Lucy, didn’t you?”

“No, Adrienne. Marshall cheated on you with Lucy. She wrote the letter.”

“No, she didn’t! God, I’ve been up the past two nights trying to piece things together, trying to make sense of it all but I couldn’t! Now I know why!” I place my head between my hands, resting it on my fingers as the truth begins to unravel.

“Adrienne, listen to me, Marshall is a piece of shit. He abandoned you when you needed him the most. You ended up at the hands of Lock who terrorized you for three years and I was there to help. Marshall wasn’t. I didn’t hurt you, Marshall hurt you. He doesn’t deserve you. I would never hurt you like that.”

“You just did,” I cry.

“Adrienne, listen to me. I am so fucking in love with you. I need you like I’ve never needed anything in my life before.”

“You’re just like Lock. You don’t know what love is,” I say between gritted teeth.

Closing the distance between us, he pins me up against the wall. His lips crush against mine. His hands grip my biceps so tight, there’s no way that he isn’t going to leave bruises. His legs begin to close around mine, pinning me to the wall when I remember my training. Lifting my knee, I hit him as hard as I can in the balls and it takes his breath away allowing me to break free from his hold. I push him to the side and he falls over.

Running to the other side of the room, I grab my coat, my bag, and my shoes. Owen is still on the ground, cupping himself in pain, as I grab the doorknob and throw open the door. The relief that I’m feeling is suddenly doused in ice water as my body crashes into something huge and hard as a rock, just outside of the door.

“What’s this? A lover’s quarrel?” Lock says just before his hand connects with my face, casting me into darkness.

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