Page 19 of Heart Sick Hate

Legs spread.

Punish you.

Rhett’s been open with me about the fact that he’s not a virgin, even if he lets the congregation make their own assumptions. And we both have the freedom before we’re married to see other people. But knowing that andhearing it are two different things, and something foreign courses through me.

It’s not jealousy, because I don’t care who Rhett’s seeing. It edges closer to embarrassment because I’m not doing the same.

We’ll be married soon enough, and he’ll have gotten all his secret desires out of his system. But I’ll be settling into our cookie-cutter life still a virgin. And what does that mean?

I’ll lose it to him?

My stomach turns at the thought. I can barely handle him touching me, but the idea of him doing more makes me nauseous. It’s not Rhett’s fault. There’s only one person who doesn’t incite that reaction, and I hate him—proving how fucked up I really am.

The burn in the back of my throat almost makes me vomit. The one thing I have control over in my life is my body. My promise I made to myself. And I decided that if and when I gave up my virginity, it would be to a man who deserved that piece of me.

I just never met him, and now time is running out.

I push off the wall and head back down the hall, except now I’m going in the wrong direction. The walls are closing in on me, and Crew’s insult from earlier plays in a loop along with everything his brother said.

Prude.

Have your legs spread.

Just because they don’t understand me doesn’t mean I don’t have my reasons.

Stretching my fingers out in front of me, I try to get a grip. I try to ignore the imaginary blood under my fingernails. I blink until my blurry eyes finally drip clear.

When I make it to the foyer once more, I stop at a set of stairs and drop down onto it, defeated.

I can’t turn back, and I can’t change fate. The countdown has begun.

Deals sealed in blood mean there’s no backing out.

I’m Rhett’s, and I have no choice but to play this game for them. No matter what it does to me.

5

Echo

“Echo, you made it.”Maren runs up to me, her curves on full display in her neon pink bikini.

She pulls me into a hug, before stepping back and jumping up and down in excitement. A passing fighter notices as his eyes drop straight to her bouncing chest. Something she doesn’t seem to mind as she winks at him and bites her lip.

You’d never guess she spends her days working at a fancy plastic surgeon’s office, and that the only reason she’s here is for the thrill of watching guys beat the life out of each other. Maren fits in like everyone else.

“I think I might get his number.” Maren watches the fighter’s ass as he walks away.

I can’t help but laugh. “These guys are not worth your time.”

“To date? Of course not.” She puckers her lips. “But a guy who can throw hands can toss me around the bedroom any day.”

She shimmies her hips and smiles with the kind of confidence that makes me wish I was more like her. While I have no problem holding my ground in the streets of LA, or doing what needs to be done to survive, sexual confidence is something I’ve always been sorely lacking.

Something that never bothered me until the constant reminders have been thrown in my face today. It’s why I’m here instead of in bed where I planned on going after dinner at the Kingsley manor.

Watching guys beat the shit out of each other will hopefully help me forget the clock counting down in my head.

My stomach twists, and I think I might be sick.

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