Page 218 of Fury

“I don’t want to screw this up. He and I are both screwed up enough as it is. How many second chances do you get in life anyhow?” Tania’s teeth snagged on her bottom lip.

Second chances. I’d felt there were no more “chances” to be had for me, that I’d used them all up. That fact was riveted deep after all this time, holding my tattered soul in place, otherwise it would jump out of my skin and leave a zombie behind.

I’d become a rocket blasting into the air, only to nosedive and crash back into the nameless field from which it came. No sprint through the stars, no landing on fresh, unchartered territory. Some nights, I still smelled the fumes over my ashes.

I refocused my attention on the gorgeousness that was Tania in the scarlet corset. Here I was urging her to grab her second chance by the balls. And what was I doing?

She smoothed a hand over the side of the fabric. “I want to be with Butler like I’ve never been with anyone before, ever. But now he knows that I’m keeping a secret from him. A secret involving Finger. I haven’t told him all of it. Nothing about you.”

Tania was having to keep secrets for me from her lover. This situation certainly wasn’t fair. She needed to be unfettered. I was trying to do that for her with this corset, but she really needed something else from me, didn’t she?

And so did I.

I turned her around and leaned her forehead against mine. “You’re a good friend, Tania.” I planted a gentle kiss on her lips.

Tania and I never got involved sexually again after the motel with Finger. The threesome had been my idea, and I’d made her feel safe and beautiful, and she’d given the same to me. She given all of herself to me and Finger, helping us get past the fresh sting of our hell. That intense, burning level of frankness between us had never diminished.

Tania cleared her throat. “I need to tell you something. Cards on the table. I can’t keep it from you, and I don’t ever want you to think that—”

“What is it?”

“After you left him, after you...”

“After I broke him, you mean?”

When he’d seen me with Eric, pregnant with Beck.

She shifted her weight. “Yeah. He and I, we bumped into each other after that and...”

Oh man.

They’d had a relationship? A thing?

An ache bloomed in my chest, gathering force, sweeping up my throat and down my limbs. An invading army marching across my tattered battlefield. But it wasn’t jealousy that marched through me with every soldier’s heavy footstep. No, it was an acute sense of sadness. Displacement. Guilt, even.

I held up a hand, shaking my head at her, stopping the booming tromp of words I didn’t want to hear. I’d hurt him, I’d left them both behind, and they’d been there for each other.

“You don’t have to explain, Tania. I’m glad that he had you in his corner. I’m glad he tried to forget.”

She threw her head back. “Dear God, you are so wrong! He did it to remember.”

My heart stopped.

Those soldiers lined up before me, and I backed up against a wall.

Ready.

Aim.

Tania’s eyes pinned me to that wall. “His passion for you is some kind of fury. A fury whose fangs and claws have sunk deep. A fury that won’t let go. A damn tidal wave of love, anger, pain, desolation. A tidal wave that won’t quit. And he tortures himself with it.”

My breath burned in my lungs. She’d just described my soul.

“He got on with his life,” I said. “So did I.”

“Yeah, he sure did. Just like you did.” A flicker of derision crossed Tania’s face. “Oh, there were the usual women. An old lady here, and another one there. They never lasted long though. Not one.”

“Well, I’m glad he had you.”

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