Jake
What the fuck?
Sixty-Three
Their Universe
Liv
Jake Wilson stood me up. He hadn’t showed up at my place, and the time was now around half-past nine. Fuck. I got all dolled up for our date together, and I wore some lingerie underneath a skintight dress.
Asshole.
The coward didn’t even have the decency to call to inform me he wasn’t coming either. I sent Jake a text, but he didn’t bother to get back to me. Instead, he ghosted me and probably blocked me too. He appeared to be a decent guy, but in reality, he was a goddamn jerk.
Unlike Sin and Saint, who were his complete opposites. They could be callously cruel, ruthlessly calculated, lethally dangerous, but underneath all of that, my phantoms weredeeply devoted. Almost suffocating, surrounding me every hour of every day and obsessing over me every second because they loved me.
What the hell was I doing?
I had pushed Sin and Saint away.
Why?
I was afraid to admit my love for each of the men who cared about me unconditionally. Sin and Saint wanted to be with me forever andIwas the coward.Iwas the only one who had run away, andIwas scared to face who I truly was. A killer for all the right reasons. I was like them.
We fought against evils who wanted to ruin us, take our dignity away, and stain our souls, but no one could break us because we had each other. Our love was all that we needed to get past the harsh times and fight our way through the fire that wanted to swallow us whole. I needed those men as much as my lungs required oxygen and I was a damn idiot for trying to escape them. They were a part of me like all my broken pieces that were lost, and I had found them engraved in each of my beautifully imperfect dark men.
I had to get to my phantoms, admit my love, and do whatever it took for them to take me back because I had made the biggest mistake of my life. The storm had passed, and the light had shone to reveal the pathI should take straight back to them. Sin and Saint were my everything, and those damn fuckers had made me realize I’d been lost for a long time, but now I was free. Unbound to love them and be as dark as I wanted to be because they would always accept all of my brokenness and every single one of my damn scars.
My heart raced at a thousand miles per minute with my realization as I grabbed a jacket and rushed out the door. As I fled the condo, never wanting to return, I ran as fast as my legs would go. I should text my men, but somehow, deep down, I knew they’d wait for me. Sin and Saint were always going to be there as they watched over me, protected me, and kept me safe in their darkly delicious ways. Unshackled, unchained, and free to be ourselves.
My mad dash took forever, but I was determined to be with my phantoms.
The evening gave me a chill, and beads of perspiration coated my forehead. My hair was up, but wispy pieces had fallen, and a strand got caught in the corner of my mouth. I spit the strand out and didn’t stop sprinting. I couldn’t because there was only one more block before I reached Sinful Saints.
Suddenly, I heard motorcycles in the near distance and the sound caught me off guard as I stopped in the middle of a crosswalk. I spun around. Car headlightsglared at me, obstructing my vision, and I held my hands up in front of me.
The vehicle headed straight for me.
Tires squealed, time slowed down, and memories flashed before my eyes, but I wasn’t done living yet. My life had only begun. I couldn’t die.
I screamed.
Hands grabbed me and yanked me to the side of the street. The SUV barreled through the red stoplight and narrowly missed me. I flew to the ground with a hard thud and a body was on top of me. Not one, but two.
All I smelled was cedarwood and whiskey.
“Liv? Are you hurt? Are you okay?” Sin peered down at me, his heavy breath on my face and concern in his narrowed eyes.
Sin inspected me.
“I’m okay,” I whispered.
“What the hell were you thinking, darling?” Saint brushed the hair away from my eyes. “Why did you stop in the middle of the street?”
“I was running to find you.” I breathed heavily, reaching out to touch each of their faces. “And I heard motorcycles, thinking it was you.”
Sin smiled at me, and his dark hair dangled down while I brushed it back. “That was us, sweetheart. We were coming to find you.”