Page 52 of Taking

Jenny was a goddamn cunt of a girl. Disloyal. A backstabbing whore.

“I never wanted her,” I muttered the truth.

Addilyn lay her hand on my chest like she’d done a half-dozen times, as though reassuring herself I was real, flesh and blood. “Back then, I thought maybe you did, and it made me green-eyed and cagey as hell.”

I chuckled and scooched down on the bed so we could lay side by side. “So, you’re saying you always had a boner for me.”

“My body did,” she didn’t hesitate to answer, “and I hated that my mind and heart did too.”

“Why?”

“Because it was wrong, and you were a cocky jackass.”

My smirk faded as I tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry for manipulating you that night. Making you get on your knees for me. You were so damn set on staying pure—”

“Purity was Mother’s idea, not mine.” My princess cut me off with snipped words. “Her ideals she’d tried to instill in me because of her own teenage years. At least, that’s what I think. She wasn’t religious. Never wanted to have kids of her own. I really don’t know.” She glanced over my shoulder to focus on the wall. “And now I never will.”

“Does that upset you?”

She pondered for a few moments while I trailed my fingertips down her spine and back up again. “She was my mother. Not a good one, and definitely worse in the end to not believe me about Lloyd, but…she was still my mother.”

“You’re more gracious than me.” I grunted, tugging her in tighter against me.

“I’ll never forgive Jenny though.”

“Any idea where she is and what she’s up to these days?” I had my reasons for asking, but Addilyn didn’t need to know about that sick part of my brain.

“Crack whore last I’d heard. Devon dumped her the night before prom our senior year. Broke her heart.”

“The whore part doesn’t surprise me. All she ever talked about was dick.”

Addilyn pulled back again to study my face, her gaze narrowing. “How many conversations of ours did you listen in on?”

I flashed my dimples. “All of them.”

That earned me another smack to my arm.

“And what about Devon?” I asked, rather than focusing on the fire in her eyes that would make my dick hard again.

“He’s studying law and is getting married this summer.”

“And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Plans? Dreams? What’d I ruin by kidnapping you and hiding you away?”

I caught the smile on her lips before she tucked against my chest again. “Not a damn thing.”

A good fucking thing—because I had no intentions of letting her go back to the life she’d lived before my release.

* * *

She fell asleep not much later, but my mind refused to rest.

I’d gone through so much emotional upheaval in the previous two hours while she ruined her voice talking and crying. My heart ached for her, and rage simmered deep inside me. Lusting for revenge for her as well as me.

Needing it.

---