Page 154

“I-I’m not running from anything, Storm,” she says, and she sounds stronger than I do. Stronger than I feel.

“Yes, you are, Sweetness,” I reply, still keeping my face close to her neck. The fine shiver that goes up her spine has me smiling, and I tangle my fingers into the nest of curls bound low on her head. “You’re running from me, and it’s time you stopped. Let’s work this shit out.”

Her hands go to my wrists, and for a breath, I hope she’ll caress the skin over my raging pulse.

Instead, she wrenches my arms away and spins to shove me back a step.

“I won’t let you play me.”

Her bottom lip trembles, but she seems livid.

She swipes her crossbody bag off the chair in the corner, but when she tries to move past me, I grab her by her upper arm.

I’ve never been more conscious of my strength and neednotto hurt someone else.

“Let me go, ch-cheater!” she snaps, her face hard.

It’s the sight of the tears lining her lower lids that nearly brings me to my fucking knees.

Fix this.

“No,” I say, my tone calm and steady despite the fact I want to bind her to me in every single way possible. “I’m not cheating. I didn’t cheat. Goddamn it, Shae.”

“Storm. Sandoval.”

“Stop trying to leave every time shit gets hard,” I say, pulling her back into me so that her nipples press against my chest. “We can’t have a relationship if you can’t trust me.”

She laughs in my face, and I take it. “Storm, you really think I’m supposed to trust you?”

Those words. They land like a bomb between us.

“Yes,” I grind out. “Yes, you’re supposed to trust me. You’re supposed to ask questions of me when you’re scared instead of running off into the moon.”

She drops her bag to the floor with a loudthunk.

“All right, then,” she says with a huff. “Explain what your sneaky link is talking about.”

She sinks onto the bed, damn near vibrating with her emotions.

I take in the sigh, completely gone for this girl.

Like, capitalGGone for Shae Rivers. Because my heart rate still hasn’t come down from her saying she’s going to walk out the door, and never in my life have I ever felt so out of control.

So overwhelmed.

I want to fall to her feet simply because it feels like that’s where I’m supposed to be—worshipping at the altar of her heart, body, and soul.

I sink to my knees, honoring the instinct.

“Shae, there’s nothing happening between me and Bambi. I’ve known her forever and when she was younger, she…had a thing with my brother, Rainn.”

She doesn’t move a muscle at that statement until a moment later when she says, “What kind of thing? She’s our age, isn’t she? You were fourteen when he died, and he was in his twenties.”

Smart girl. Too smart for her own good sometimes.

“Yes. That’s correct.” I want to touch her, mainly because I’m a selfish motherfucker and I know the feeling of her beneath my palm would mean the world in bringing me back from the brink.

“Were they…” Shae begins.