Do You Want Me? (This Love Hurts, #0.5)

by W. Winters

It’s an undeniable feeling when you miss someone you know you shouldn’t.

I did always love him. There wasn’t a moment that I didn’t love him. He knows that. He has to know that I still love him; we just simply couldn’t be together. We decided. We decided together. “You said you’d let me go,” I whisper, speaking over my strangled breaths. My gaze never leaves his, even as tears prick my eyes. Not until he answers me. “I changed my mind.”

Some days you’re the dog. Some days you’re the hydrant. My auntie Lindie told me that one when I was young.

I can’t give them one letter without letting on about the others. And in those, I’m just as guilty as he was. Not in the beginning. Not until I realized…

I’m such a prick for leading her on. But damn do I love to be wanted by her. To be so obviously desired, it makes me feel in ways I’ve never felt before.

“We’ve been friends for a while, Agent Walsh. Is that all we are? Just friends?” The way her strength leaves her, the rawness and slight suffering that are evident in her pinched brow and tightened cords in her neck as she swallows, beg me to tell her the truth. That I’ve wanted her from the first time I saw her.

Arousal is primitive, obsession demeaning… what she is… is something hypnotizing.

We had an unspoken deal. “Had” being the operative word. I now have something I truly desire and no reason not to take it.

“It was a group of three men. They kidnapped and murdered those kids. Fed their remains to the dogs. The one who lived told the cops they had to watch it all. They saw everything happen to the kid before them. One at a time as they huddled together in the cell and were forced to watch.”

The ache is indescribable. She could look at me that way. If things had been different, she could look at me the way she does him. I’ve never wanted anything or anyone like I want her and the sick part of me knows it’s because Cody pursued her. It’s a jealousy I haven’t been able to kick.

Still, I wanted her first. There’s no way he doesn’t know.

There was an unspoken deal, a bit of camaraderie between us. I’m not the one who changed things. What happens next is his fault, his doing. Not mine.