Page 109 of Hush (Fighting Fate)
“Fuck!”
Pushing myself to my feet, I stalked to the other side of the room, shoving my hands through my hair. I knew I needed to apologize to her, but I was fucking scared of looking at her right now. If I saw one ounce of fear or disappointment in her eyes I was going to lose it. But I knew it would be there. How could it not?
Jerking around to pace to the other side of the room, I grabbed at the back of my head. “Jesus. Kaeli…I’m so fucking sorry…”
Rubbing my hands over my face, I tried to force myself to look at her, but I just couldn’t. I was a fucking coward.
But then she was in front of me, naked, wrapped in my sheet, concern and worry etched on her face.
“Noah. Stop,” she said, her voice slightly uncertain. “You’re scaring me.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said again. And I’d keep saying it until it was ever enough.
She grabbed my wrists, holding firmly. “I don’t understand why you’re sorry. Tell me what’s going on.”
I shook my head. I was so fucking angry with myself. “I can’t believe I did that to you. You deserve so much more than that.”
Her brow creased and her gaze flickered from one of my eyes to the next in rapid succession. “Noah, you’re not making any sense. Are you saying you regret what we just did?”
“Kaeli, that was fucked up. I took you like a fucking animal. I took you like Mitch! I thought that part of my life was gone, but obviously it’s not. And I don’t know if it ever will be. It’s…fucking scarred me or something. I’m no good for you. You need to get far away from me. Find someone who can treat you the way you deserve to be treated.”
She blinked up at me, her lips slightly parted as I panted with panicked breaths.
Slowly, she licked her lips and inhaled, still clutching the sheet to her chest. “Let me get this straight. You think you’re bad for me because of what we just did.”
“What I just did,” I said harshly. There was no way I was going to let her take any of the blame for what I just did.
Her eyes narrowed like she was growing angry. Good. She should be fucking angry.
“Noah…if you think you’re horrible for taking me the way you did, what does it make me for liking it?”
My mind went blank for a minute. I didn’t understand the words she was saying. “What do you mean you liked it?”
She sighed. “Noah, you’re never going to get rid of Mitch, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s a part of you.”
“I know! That’s what I’m saying. That’s why you should leave
me, Kaeli. I’m bad for you!”
“No,” she said steadily. “That’s not what I mean. I mean that Mitch is a part of you. That he’s probably always been a part of you. Like an alter ego. Everyone has different personalities that come out to help them cope with different situations. Mitch is strong, hard, protective, and knows exactly what he needs to do to get results. He was the perfect choice for you to make when choosing who you needed to be to get through your time in the Den. If you think back before you went undercover, you’ll probably find he was there a lot.”
I stared at her. Why did that make sense? But, no…I couldn’t. Mitch was bad. He’d done bad things while I’d been undercover. I shook my head. I couldn’t let her confuse me. I was right. She needed to be free of me.
Her expression hardened. “Where’s your cell?”
What? My cell? Why was she asking that?
“Where’s your cell, Noah?” Without waiting for me to give her an answer, she spun, searching the room, finding it on the floor beside my discarded jeans.
Before I could figure out what she was doing with it, she was pushing buttons and the sound of ringing came through the loud speaker.
“Noah?”
I blinked at the sound of Adam’s voice. Why was she ringing Adam?
“Adam?” she said, placing the cell on the dresser. “It’s Kaeli. Noah’s fine. I just wanted to ask you a question if that’s alright?”
“Uh…you do know it’s like one o’clock in the morning, don’t you?”
