Page 1 of Chasing Me (Beyond Me #2)

JAMES

IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A LOVE STORY.

Right?

Yeah, I know, I didn’t believe in that shit. Lust? Hell, yeah. Love?

No fucking way.

Yet here I am, alone in my apartment, on my knees, staring at a closed door.

’Cause she left me. For good this time. And if she was smart, she’ll never take me back, because all I do is end up hurting her and screwing up her life.

She deserves better, and that’s not me. Yet the idea of another guy putting his hands on her makes me want to roar like the animal I am and beat the life out of him. Quinn’s always affected me that way.

I remember the first time I saw her.

A one-piece swimsuit covering her slamming body, eyes dark and mysterious as she met my gaze with that haughty look I’d get to know and adore. In that moment, I fell head over fucking heels and never looked back.

I knew she was out of my league, but I didn’t care. Looking back, I wonder if I hadn’t pursued her, would things have turned out differently? Is it Fate that determines our choices in life? God? Free will? Or just plain old innate selfishness?

I got her, of course. There hadn’t been a girl I wasn’t able to seduce. Problem was, she seduced me right back, body, mind, and fucking soul. She possessed me, tormented me, and showed me a world that was so bright and pure I was almost blinded.

Quinn made me feel alive again, reconnecting me with a part of myself I thought I’d buried years ago.

She looked right into my sorry soul and loved me anyway.

Didn’t she know after such a drug I could never settle for less?

Didn’t she realize no matter how many times I screwed up, or broke her heart, or bent her to my will, I’d never be able to let her go?

If I hadn’t known such intensity existed, would it have been better for both of us?

I don’t pretend to have any of the answers.

I never did. All I know is when she left me in Key West, I had to make a choice.

The week we spent together in Key West was a sliver of a possible future, a future filled with more meaning than I’d ever had in my pathetic twenty-four years.

I could change my life and go after her, into another dimension I had no experience with.

I could leave my friends and my shit behind and start fresh, and become the man I wanted to be for her.

A man she seemed to glimpse in my eyes, even though I still worried day after day if that man even existed.

Now, I know he never did.

But it’s too late. I followed her to Chicago, enrolled in art school, and swore I’d be everything she wanted.

For a while, it was as perfect as I imagined.

Then, like I always do, I made a wrong choice and watched my future and the love of my life disappear in a cloud of smoke that choked my lungs and reminded me of my limitations.

Yeah, did you think this was a fucking love story?

Sorry to dissuade you, but you better go down to your local bookstore and pick some other shit up.

Unless you’re like me, and believe true love, the real kind, isn’t nice and sweet and pure.

No, it’s dirty, and sinful, and messy. It’s like ripping a chunk of flesh from your body and watching yourself bleed out in slow, helpless intervals until you thankfully pass out.

No. This isn’t a love story. But it’s the only story I got.

Let’s hope the ending hasn’t been written yet.