Page 51 of Only Everything
Poison.
I infected, warping men’s brains. I ruined them… but I had the chance to change that.To try to fix it.Ignoring the harm I caused wasn’t working. That left one thing. I had tocontrolthe outcome like Nancy said. I had that power. I just had to find a way to use it. Preferably in a way that could work for both of us.
Walking inside, I shut the door of the cabin behind me. I tossed my purse on the bar, kicking off my flats as my bare feet padded across the living room. I headed for his room, to his bed, but stopped as I turned to look down the hall. My hand lifted to the door frame as I tapped against the wood, staring towards the open, tiny laundry room.
In slow steps, I headed to the back, turning to face the door to the second bedroom. Storage. That’s what Reid had said. But something in the way he talked about the room hadn’t been right.
“Why be suspicious? What are you hiding?”
The whisper cut through the silence. I reached for the knob, pressing my lips into each other as it didn’t turn in my hand.
Locked, just like before.
A deep breath left me. I trailed my fingerup, pressing the tip into the grooves of the lock. Key… where would Reid hide the key? Was it here? On his key ring?
My head tilted back, and I tiptoed, tracing my fingers over the top of the door. Nothing. My fingers slid down but stopped on the frame at the hollow ruts of missing wood.Letters?I traced, letting them spell out a word in my mind. A name.
T
A
U
R
I swallowed hard, stepping back as I tried to see what I could so clearly feel. It was there, shallow but evident.
TAUR
TAUREN
TAUR
Not once. Twice. Three times.
The longer I stared, the more of my names I saw. But they weren’t deep. Maybe they weren’t supposed to be. But this was my room. It was written all over the top of the frame.
I headed for the kitchen, throwing open drawer after drawer. When I reached the bottom one, two keys slid forward. I grabbed both, keeping my pace fast as I headed back. When I lifted my hand, I couldn’t ignore the slightshaking that took it over as the key slid home and turned at my twist.
Good—bad.
Who the hell was I? I didn’t break rules. I obeyed orders. But I couldn’t. Not anymore. If I was going to step into my power with Reid, it started now.
My room—my name.
It was time to see what was inside…
CHAPTER 19
REID
It was dark.Not overly late, but enough time had gone by to make Tauren wonder what I’d been doing. Maybe I would have smiled if my nerves wouldn’t have been through the roof with impatience. And the questions. God, the fucking questions.
Each hour since I’d pulled over and watched Tauren and the cop stretched out like an eternity. When she went home, I went further onto the state land that joined mine. I made my way to the cabin and kept an eye on it from a distance, waiting, watching, seeing if that cop would show up at my house. The way he’d been leaning into her car. The expressions I’d caught from him as he’d turned my way, not seeing me. He’d given her a paper. Why? What had he written down? I feared I knew. He hadn’t been angry from what I could see of his handsome face. Too handsome, if I wanted to be honest. But I couldn’t be if I wanted to contain this rage. Which I barely could anymore.
I’d run back to my truck at a sprint the moment my alarm buzzed from my phone in my back pocket. And I’d sped the entire way home, secretly praying he’d pull me over too so I could question him… kill him? No. Or…no.
Metal creaked as I opened the door to my old truck and stepped out. It didn’t take me but a few steps to make it up the porch. I got my keys ready, cursing as the knob turned in my grasp. I was ready to let my aggravation out on Tauren, and would have, had she not been bending over, putting a pot away in the bottom cabinet. She had on one of my shirts, and view of her bare ass left me jolting to a stop. Had it not been for the dark red lace covering her pussy from the thong, I wouldn’t have guessed she’d been wearing panties at all.
