Page 17 of Too Late

“You have no idea how many times I’ve heard that same, uniform apology,” she whispers.

“It’snotthe same, Sloan. You can’t compare me to him.”

She tilts her eyes up to the sky and laughs, trying to hold back more tears. “You’re no better than he is. The only difference between the two of you is that nothing Asa has ever said to me has hurt as much as everything you’ve said today.” She pulls my hands away from her face and climbs into her car. She reaches for the door handle and looks back up at me. “You’re no different, Carter. Go save someone else.” She pulls the door shut and I’m forced to take a step back. I watch as she completely breaks down inside the car. She doesn’t look at me again, but I can see the tears spilling down her cheeks as she pulls away.

“I’m sorry,” I say again as I watch her drive away.

ELEVEN

ASA

After everything I’ve done for her—after everything I’mdoingfor her—she better have one hell of a good excuse for putting me through this.

She’d be nothing if it weren’t for me. I took her in when she had nowhere else to go. If it weren’t for me, she would have had to crawl back to her crack-whore mother. Just based on the things she’s told me about her childhood, she’s way better off with me and she knows it. A mother who brings home a new sleazy husband every other month? I’d like to see her go back to that shit.

But if she’s fucking around, that’s the first place I’ll drop her off. I’ll be the first one to shove her right through her crack-whore mother’s front door—back into a trailer full of rotating stepfathers who get off on hiding in her closet while she changes clothes.

“Do you want me to try something else?” Jess says, pulling my focus back into the moment. She’s on her knees at the edge of the bed. “It’s not getting hard.”

I lift up on my elbows and look down at her. “If you knew how to fucking do it right,” I say. I stand up and scoot her a few inches across the floor and brace my hands against the wall. I close my eyes and imagine she’s Sloan kneeling in front of me instead. Except I imagine she’s crying, begging me to keep her. Pleading for me to save her again, just like I had to do the last time she did something this stupid.

Who in their right mind would take Sloan to a restaurant, knowing she belongs to me? To Asa Jackson? Whoever he is, if he knew the things I could do to him—he never would have done it. No one has that kind of death wish.

“Fuck,” I say, irritated at the way the rubber gets in the way of feeling her tongue. I pull out of her mouth and rip the condom off and then let her finish while I pretend she’s Sloan.

When I go downstairs, Jon is seated at the bar with Dalton and Carter. I grab a beer out of the fridge and take a seat with them.

“You didn’t tell me she could deep throat,” I say to Jon, twisting the top off the beer. “Lucky bastard.”

Jon glares at me, leaning back in his chair. “I didn’t know she could.”

I laugh. “Well, I don’t think she knew she could either until about five minutes ago.”

Jon sighs and shakes his head. “Goddammit, Asa. I told you to go easy on her.”

I laugh and take a sip, then set the beer back on the table. “The only girl I go easy on is Sloan.”

Carter lifts his beer to his lips, eyeing me while he tilts his head back and gulps. This kid has a major staring problem.

“Speaking of Sloan,” Jon says, pulling my attention back to his. “When will you return the favor?” He laughs and takes a swig of beer.

The jackass islaughing? He thinks he made a fuckingjoke? I pull my leg back and kick his chair as hard as I can, sending him and his beer backward onto the ceramic tile. I stand up and look down at him, my hands clenched in fists.

“Sloan’snot a fuckingwhore!” I yell.

Jon pulls himself up off the floor, then proceeds to bow up to me like the idiot that he is. “She’s not? Guess you found out why she was on Ricker today. She wasn’t off fucking some guy like you thought?”

I lunge forward and punch him in his goddamned filthy mouth. He falls to the floor and I kick him in the ribs. I drop to my knees and try to punch him again, but Dalton and Carter are pulling me off of him before I have the chance. He scoots away from me and wipes at his bloody mouth. He looks down at his hand and back up at me.

“Fucking bastard,” he says.

“Funny. That’s the same thing your girlfriend called me when I pulled my dick out of her throat.”

Jon scrambles to his feet and lunges forward again, so I step into his swing, allowing him to square me in the jaw. Carter steps between us, pushing him back against the fridge while Dalton tightens his grip on my arms.

“Go upstairs!” Carter says to him. “Go check on Jess and calm the fuck down.”

Jon nods and Carter releases him. Dalton doesn’t let go of me until Jon clears the stairs.

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