Page 128 of Tantalizing Kings

I say nothing, going to move out of the way, but he grabs my arms and pushes me up against the wall.

My eyes widen with panic as my throat clogs up with a scream. He boxes me in, crowding over me.

Fear has me frozen in place, unable to think, to speak, to move. He’s been drinking, I can smell the beer wafting off his breath as he starts to speak. “I’ve missed you, baby,” he whines, running his fingers down the side of my cheek. I cringe, trying not to whimper. His touch makes me uncomfortable. I don’t feel safe. I want to leave. Why can’t I move! “We were so good together. I made a mistake.”

Is he for real right now? Good together? If anything, in the time since our break up, I’ve realized just how wrong we were for one another. It wasn’t love, or even a real relationship. It was just two people who put the wrong label on a friendship at best.

“Made a mistake?” I manage to speak. “You cheated on me.”

He lets out a frustrated groan. “You never put out! You were my girlfriend. You were supposed to have sex with me. That’s what people in a relationship do. I tried to hold off as long as I could, but I’m a guy, Sadie. I need sex. You weren’t giving it to me, so I found someone who would. But it was just sex. Nothing more. You're the one I loved. Not her.”

I shake my head, not wanting to hear his bullshit. Everything he’s saying is so stupid. It doesn’t matter what he thinks anyway; I don’t want to hear it.

“We’re over, Raymond. We weren’t good together, you have to see that. I’ve moved on.”

“You're fucking them, aren’t you?” he snarls, and I flinch when he bangs his fist against the wall above my head. “All of them.” He lets out a humorless laugh. “Real fucking nice, Sadie. You wouldn’t fuck me, but you're opening your legs for them. It’s fucking sad, is what it is. You chose them over me? I could have given you everything. A house, kids, a fucking good life. They’re all fucking engaged! Yet you chose them over me?”

“Let me go, Raymond.” Tears fill my eyes as a sick feeling turns in my belly. I want to leave, I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to go home.

I close my eyes, chanting the same thing over and over in my head. And when he wraps his hand around my throat, I let out a sob of pure terror.

“Not until you give me what I’m owed, Sadie. One last fuck for good—”

He doesn’t get the chance to finish that sentence because he’s being pulled off me.

My mind is fuzzy, fear still having me frozen in place as I look over at Raymond pinned against the wall across from me.

I don’t hear his shouting, I don’t hear the people who rush into the small cramped space at the end of the stairs.

I just watch as Collin pounds his fist into Raymond’s face.

And a sick thrill fills me as he does.

Chapter 33

Collin

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