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“You couldn’t take the shame, could you?” I said to him. “People finding out the things you liked. The kink and the various ways you like to fuck. Everything was a secret in your rigid family, and that was fine, until . . . until you were done hiding it.”
“I know someone like that,” I told him. “He couldn’t fight for the life he wanted until he was forced to fight alone. He held on to his friends and to his sister so tightly, he almost killed us, because in that moment, he couldn’t bear to see us leave, and he would’ve rather seen us dead.”
Damon learned. He’d fucked up, but he learned.
“You weren’t that fucking great,” I said. “You were a huge hassle that I indulged in for far too long.”
“I haven’t called you,” I pointed out. “I haven’t contacted you in any way in nearly nine years.”
Fucking bitch. My dick swelled and hardened as I got angrier by the second.
“You had years to reach out, but you didn’t,” I told her. “Believe me, I had time to become well aware you didn’t give a shit, and now, neither do I.”
“I moved on.” The candle flickered, a draft hitting us from somewhere in the house. “I kissed others, touched their faces like I touched yours, and spent time with them like I never did with you.”
“Years of nights,” I said, and I wasn’t sure if I was saying it more for her or me anymore, but I kept going. “Years of not thinking of you. Nearly an entire life of memories and history that doesn’t include you. You were nothing.”
“She took care of me.” My voice dropped to nearly a whisper, and I didn’t care that she didn’t know who I was talking about. “She listened to me. Made me smile.”
“Stood next to me,” I gritted out. “Fit in with my friends. She’s smart, clever, resourceful, and she took the shitty hand life dealt her and still knows how to love people, unlike you.”
I gasped, fully fucking hard now.
She glowered, and I searched her eyes, waiting for her to lose control. To show that she grew up, wasn’t afraid, and was willing to admit she liked it and she might like it a lot if I bent her ass over this table right now, fucked her, and used her hair as leverage.
I had questions. Like, why didn’t she tell me what was happening at home? Or why couldn’t she trust me? I was patient. I would’ve understood. I wouldn’t have disappointed her.
I saw Micah pressed into the bookshelves, Rory behind him and thrusting into him in the dark.
He wasn’t. Rory was the dominant one, and Micah loved every second of it because all he wanted was love. I was like that. Emmy was like Rory. Perfect for me.
She dominated me, and I didn’t want it any other way. In the classroom, in the library, in the movie theater, in my truck . . . Watching her cash in on my ass was better than actual sex.
“I know you know how to take a beating,” I told her, whispering over her lips, “but this isn’t the kind you’re used to.”
“Hit me,” I whispered over her lips before diving in to kiss her. “Hit me for all the tail I fucked after you. For all the nights I forgot about you, ridden to kingdom come by tits and ass ten times hotter than you.”
“Damon was right.” She pushed at me. “You are smaller than him.”
I was not smaller. And I didn’t need reminding of how the hell she knew what he looked like naked.
Cum leaked out of my dick as I pulsed with need.
“When you’re ready for me to finish that,” I said. “You come to me.”
That was the hardest fucking thing I’d ever had to do. Like harder than prison, detox, and the Doris Day double feature at the drive-in my mother asked me to take her to when I was seventeen. Combined.
CHAPTER 16
It was a game I knew well.
And that car parked outside my house . . .
The slits on the key chain. In the incense burner.
It’s yours now. Use it well. No one else knows, do not tell. When you’re done, pass it on. The Carfax Room hides us from what we want gone.
I did a double take, seeing the cruiser. My chest tightened.
“It’s starting to rain,” Martin said through the open passenger side window as he drove. “Get in.”
He lifted his arm, and I flinched, but then I noticed he was reaching into the back seat for something.
“Edward McClanahan,” he said, gesturing out the window ahead of us. “They’re moving his body, Em.”
“Every year, those arrogant little losers make their pilgrimage here like they’re going to fucking church,” he continued. “But next year, it won’t be Edward in the grave. I bought it today. For Grand-Mère.”
“One down,” he whispered. “And one embarrassment to go.”
“And you would fit in nicely if you stayed in school and stopped troubling me.”
“I didn’t ask for this!” he screamed, grabbing my collar and slamming me into the door again. “I didn’t want it! Why can’t you help me out? Why can’t you be better?”
“Just . . .” He sucked in a breath, and I saw tears fill his eyes. “Just be fucking normal! Why do you do that, huh? Why?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Not the face!” I cried out.
The rain pummeled the car, drowning out the sounds of his fists and curses as I dug my nails into the seat and the taste of blood filled my mouth.
My glasses spilled to the floor and then . . . something wet dripped into my eye.
“It’s Devil’s Night tomorrow,” he said as we sat at the stoplight near the village on the way home. “The little devils fancy themselves dangerous, but no one is more of a threat than the person willing to do what everyone else won’t.”
I could take it. It would all be over. I could sleep at night.
“It will be someday. This will all seem like a dream compared to the nightmare that awaits everyone who stands in my way.”
And if he didn’t die, I would, and it had to be tonight. My insides screamed. I couldn’t take it anymore.
I walked to the trunks by the windows, found the dress, and pulled it out. Emmy Scott was tired and sad. But Reverie Cross was going to Homecoming.
CHAPTER 17
How did that girl always do this to me? She had me about ready to break and go ask her for it instead. I knew she wouldn’t come to my room last night after I’d left her in the drawing room. I knew that.
God, I wanted her. I could chalk it up to being without a woman for so long, but no . . . it was Emory Sophia Scott and how good her smiles felt. All the frowns were worth the trouble for just one smile.
It was an obsession from the start.
