Page 40 of The Last Time You Break Me

“Lara, stop. Don’t fight him, love. I’ll get you out, just don’t fight him,” I panicked as I lost myself in her complexities. I prayed this man was bluffing, that this would not be the moment to show a man without fear how to truly be afraid. My heart rate slowed down, to the point that I had to question if I was still breathing or not. Silence descended as the world faded to black and I tried to work out my next move.

Kill this fucker.

That was my next move.

My only move.

I allowed the darkness to take me as I prowled closer, ready to take the bullet myself if I had too. Lara met my gaze and smiled at me softly. There was humor in it, a little saucy smirk that told me everything would be okay, that she appreciated this and she’d show me just how much later.

But her eyes?

They held uncertainty and that is what robbed me of the oxygen I needed to survive another day.

She threw her bound wrists into the air and placed them around the back of the man’s head in order to try and restrain him. But she was reckless. All she did was push the gun that was directly pointed to the back of her head, further into her skull. They struggled as she fought for dominance and then lost her footing. They both crashed into the depths of the still waters just as the resounding echo of dread blasted through the air. A wild boom of a gun fired shattered the earth around me as the sound become lost to the crashing of the waves created from their descent. Blood billowed within the crystal depths of the pool and spread further still until it looked like a shark had torn apart an ocean full of feed.

My heart broke, splintered down the center as my life slowly drizzled away into the netherlands and a wild and harrowed desolation-filled scream tore from my throat and exploded from my chest. I dove into the pool, swimming to what felt like the bottomless depths of an endless sea and willed myself to see through the chaos and foam that bubbled around me. Two bodies twirled at the bottom of the pool and I swam even harder to reach them. As I did, I pulled whoever I could reach first into my hold.

If it was the Irish, I’d need to kill him.

If it was Lara, I’d need to save her.

But in my terror, I hadn’t notice the man I pulled from the water was already dead, bleeding out in my arms, but I broke his neck anyway to ensure he stayed that way. I frantically searched for Lara and pulled the next body close to me as I tried to fight for visibility. We burst free from the water’s surface as beaded drops of H2O lined along our brows and the rest cascaded down our flesh and clung to our clothes.

“Lara? Oh fucking god, come on, Hellcat, talk to me. Fucking talk to me, Lara! Wake up!” I plead with so much sorrow in my voice, I choked on it. I stuttered and stumbled as I battled for every word. “Wake up, baby, wake up!” I turned her in my arms and strange filled eyes stared back at me.

“I’m not passed out, Reg. I know how to swim and it was that fucker that took the bullet. I’m all good,” she said slowly, sympathy thick in her eyes as she coughed up the water that sat idle in her lungs as I pulled and pushed her around under the surface in order to get her some air. Tears filled my eyes and I blamed them all on the chlorine. “I’m okay,” she whispered as she lifted a hand to cradle the side of my face.

“Don’t you ever fucking scare me like that. If I say stay put, you stay fucking put, woman,” I sneered, anger and fear mingled within my broken and clipped tone.

“Cold day in hell when I start listening to you, baby, and the last time I checked, it’s still hot down there.” She winked at me and my heart started to beat once again.

It beat in sync with the pulse that fluttered at the base of her throat, the subtle flicker I was drawn to as I uttered numbly, “Did you just call me baby?”

Chapter Fifteen

Lara

Black Sea - Natasha Blume

Iwas not a touchy-feely kind of woman, but I was tired of being so afraid. I hid it behind appearing brave, but I’m not. I still carried the fear of rejection with me and it kept me from taking any kind of step in moving forward. The mind was a powerful thing and when it was afraid, your soul felt it too. More importantly, though, I was tired of being alone.

Humiliation was a moment of grief in return for a life-long lesson.

I had that lesson many years ago and it stuck. But I was not that woman anymore.

With humiliation came a shot to the head or a knife to the throat. I could be brave enough to trust him one last time, to give him my heart and hope he didn’t break what was left of it, because I’d only… “Tear your heart from your chest if you do,” I whispered, not even aware that I had also said the rest out loud too. He looked down at me as he cradled me within hisarms, riddled with a look that could burn the Atlantic and move mountains across the sea.

He looked at me as if I had just given him something as powerful as the world and my heart fluttered as my pussy clenched. “I’m tired of the games, Reg. I’m tired of fighting all the damn time just to hate you. Protecting myself from your rejection is turning out to be a lot more painful than the sting that came with the rejection in the first place.”

“I never should have walked away that night. I couldn’t turn my back on you without a kiss. Without taking you just for a moment. It tore me apart but I honestly thought I was doing what was best for you. But that rejection ended up being a knife to your heart because I was too selfish not to steal a taste and keep it. I needed you to hate me so you wouldn’t love me, Lara. I thought loving me would be the death of you.”

“I never stopped loving you.”

“And I never stopped loving you. I never stopped watching, stalking and following your every move. In every shadow I stood and with every second I craved. I’ve never known a moment where you haven’t consumed it, Lara. I fucked up, but I’m also not a good man. I deal in death and gore, not love and emotions. I fucked up and I’ll probably fuck up again. It’s something you’ll need to deal with because I’m not going anywhere. But know, my sweet but psycho woman, that I adore you. Know that I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you,” he declared as he lowered his upper body as he brought his lips to mine. They hovered, waited, assessed if this time I’d give myself to him without a protest on my lips. So I met him with lips of passion instead of hatred.

I leaned forward and kissed him slowly. I could feel the smooth satin of my lips pushed firmly against his as I snaked my hand around his shoulder and curled it into his thick hair. Itussled the strands and threaded them through my fingers as I curled my hips into him.

A hot sensation heated along my pelvic area, deep into my core as it moved lower and lower until it sat heavy and wanton in my apex. We moved with the water, the small waves that filtered across my body added a heady sensation of desire to my senses as the coolness mingled with the inferno that was rising.

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