Wrath (Sinful Secrets, #4)

by Ella James

It's a quick, soft, warm kiss, and it shocks me so much that I sort of gasp against his mouth, and then I try to back up, but the tub’s behind me. He’s all wide eyes. His parted lips— I kiss them again—fast and hard—and then I kiss his damp cheek. His big shoulders tremble. My...

looks at me. I look at him—my heart bursting with a million feelings. “Hey Ez?” I whisper. “Let’s get out of here.”

I want to kiss it. I'd like to unzip the fleece and reach inside it, run my hands over his ribs. I can tell he's dropped weight since last time I saw him on his Insta stories. His jaw is sharper and his dark hair longer.

"What?" I whisper.

"Do I seem like a stranger to you?" "No."

don't really know you." I

"I don’t know you, but…I feel like I can't live without you,” I say, and my voice shakes. “As soon as I found you on social media, I started watching every day. I found your Snapchat. Friended you."

Tears sting my eyes again, at how pathetic this all is. At how he's looking at me—sad and maybe pitying. "It's hard to explain," I manage. "It's okay." His hand re-grips mine.

Miller leads me between parked cars, toward the iron stairs I think will lead up to his second-story unit.

"Miller?” I say. “Look at this."

I pull my sweatshirt and my shirt up, showing him the tattoo just above my pec. His eyes widen and his jaw drops open. There's something strange on his face—something that’s a lot like anger. "Did you—" draw it, I start to ask him.

"You knew you were leaving,"

It had faded. But before you went to bed that night, you had me re-draw it."

"You don't know what that means, do you?" he asks, his voice gentler now.

Then he turns toward me. He turns my right hand over and starts to massage all around the base of my palm, in between my thumb and pointer finger. The pressure is so focused, the massage so sudden, that my legs go weak, my face too warm.

"It gets sore, right?" he asks, husky. "Muscles tight?"

"Yes," I whisper. He nudges his front door open, leads me into a small studio apartment. "Do you still love Icees?" "Did you give me Icees?"

"I gave you everything I thought you wanted.”

Miller loved me and I didn't know.

"I've got you," he whispers. "I'm good at this. Turn your head and look back at me." I do, only for a second. It was real. It was real it was real it was real that shit was motherfucking REAL! Miller holds me tight. His breath tickles my neck. "Let's move to the couch, my angel.”

"I'm sorry I'm doing this,"

"Don't be sorry, angel." That endearment makes more tears drip down my cheeks.

"I want to make you feel better."

"Lie between my legs here. Put your arms around my waist and put your head on my chest."

"Yeah. Just like that."

"You got hurt during the game?" "A little."

"Like that, don't you?" he murmurs. "You remember?"

"I remember everything about you."

His hand that's scratching my back stills, and he wraps that arm around me.

feel like I’m about to cry again, from being held like this. I can’t remember the last time someone hugged me…but I know I’ve never been held like this. Maybe I’ve been held by him, though.

“Ezra.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“I don’t want to tell you,”

“You don’t have to right now,”

“I don’t want to pressure you or anything. Just be here with me if you need

wish I had the nerve to kiss him—even j...

“No. You deserve to ...

“I’m nervous to tell it.” I wipe a palm on my pants, press my lips together, look down at the couch’s fibers. “Don’t feel sorry for me.” My voice sounds raspy. I swallow and hold his blue eyes with mine. “I’m okay now. I got out. And I found you.”

“That makes me nervous, Ez. But I want to hear it. I know you, and I already know stuff happened.”

“Did I ever mention…Riley,” I manage. “Or Paul?” The word sounds choked. “You used to dream a...

“What about Alton?” His brows notch, and he shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Do you have a drink here?” I ask. He frowns. “Do you want to pour one?” “For you?” he asks. I shake my head. “For yourself.” “No, Ez.”

“I don’t need a drink to listen to you.”

😭❤

“It was…weird…in the cabins. It felt isolated. Real survival shit. We’d get together for group stuff, but it had this whole survival feel. I think what’s important” —my voice wavers— “was that it made us feel disconnected. From the rest of the world.”

“Riley—she was my partner. And she was young. Like eighth grade. I saw her as a sister. Every night, I’d sleep on the floor, and she would sleep on the bed. I chopped wood. There was a little wood stove.” Another deep breath in, and blow it out, and I look back up at Josh, feeling strangely, peacefully numb. “I didn’t want the two of us to still be in the cabin in the winter, when the snow started.

“But there were phases you were supposed to move through. The second one, they called it Reformation. And word was that you’d be moved inside, into a real building, for that part. This place was acres and acres of…like, forest. So I guess…I didn’t believe it.” My voice sounds slow and heavy. I notice I’m looking down, so I look back up at him. “The night before Riley and me got moved to phase two…she had been in her bed. And she wanted me to get in with her.”

“I did it because…” I bite my lip, not knowing how to give words to my memories. And then I do know. “I guess I was lonely,” I say slowly. “It had been about a month, and I think I was sort of scared already. You could feel it underneath the surface. It wasn’t a place that ran like normal...

“Sometimes…in my dreams, we run away and see the chain-link fence with barbed wire on the top.” I glance up at him. “It’s really there.”

“There were three floors,” I say, tracing the edge of a cushion. “Clinic on the first floor. Girls on second. And the boys on third.” My eyes flicker up to his on instinct, but I know that if I look at him, I’ll start to lose it more, so I look back down at the couch.

“This part’s bad.”