Page 56 of False Start

Fire snapped in her eyes. “So, what about that? What about the kids you met today? My family,” she said, jabbing a thumb into her chest. “What happens to them when they lose the one safe place they have? How are you going to feel when that happens and you had the power to help them, but you were too damn scared to do anything about it?” Every word grew more and more raw until her voice broke.

“I’m not scared.”

“The fuck you’re not,” she snapped.

The last of my control fractured and I stepped into her, my hand cupping her jaw, forcing her to look up at me. “You and that foul mouth. Someone should have done something about that a long time ago.”

How the hell was I supposed to say no to her? To this woman who loved those kids.

A woman who couldn’t bear to throw away a frayed green shoelace because it was the last connection she had to her mother.

She raised her chin even more, defiance flaming in her blue eyes. “Show me someone strong enough to.”

She fucked with my head.

She fucked with my heart.

She fucked with everything I believed about myself.

Everything I needed to believe about myself.

She turned the new normal I’d found upside down and threatened everyone and everything I worked so hard to protect.

I turned the knob to the door and backed her into the dark landing at the foot of the stairs to the second floor. I pictured her apartment up there, a tiny space I’d helped Patti clean up almost twenty years ago now.

This girl, the one who clung to nostalgia so fiercely she kept a broken lace in an old skate would have turned it into her own utopia. She’d cherish the quirks of register heat and rough plank floors gouged with the scars from the past.

And she’d leave every last inch of the space every bit as touched as it had been before she made it hers.

“No witnesses. See? I called it, you’re scared,” she panted out the words, her voice taunting me.

I backed her up to the wall never letting go of her jaw. “Shut up.”

“Make me.”

I crushed my mouth to hers, the kiss every bit as raw and punishing as it was seductive. I plundered the warm places behind her plump lips. My hands spread over each side of her head, my fingertips spearing into her hair, holding her under me, giving her no escape.

I took and took, stealing her breath for my own, exploiting her willing mouth.

I needed her to steal it back. To be selfish. To push me away. Anything.

As long as she didn’t give.

Don’t give one damn part of yourself to me.

She reached for me then, a low groan rumbling in her throat. My jacket slid from her shoulders as her palms crawled up my chest, burning a trail along the way as though she had her hands on my bare skin.

Her fingers plunged into my hair, breaking the hold I had on her, her nails scraping my scalp, pulling me in until I didn’t know if I was the one wielding the power anymore.

“You want a confession, Mayhem?” I said as I tore my mouth from hers and dragged my lips along the curve of her jaw, to the soft spot just behind her ear.

“Yeah, I’m scared,” I admitted, biting the soft flesh of her neck, making her hiss.

“Of this.” I licked her skin, memorizing her taste, making her gasp.

“Of you.” I dragged my teeth over the rise of her collarbone, the sound of her jagged breath echoing in my head.

“Of me.” Dragging her sweater lower, I pressed a series of hot kisses over the curve of her shoulder, her fingernails carving into my skin as she sank her fingertips deeper into my muscles.

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