Page 23 of Darling Psycho

She couldn’t separate the two.

Tugging her hand free, it was only then that Lawless stopped and looked at her, an eyebrow arched high on his forehead. Had she expected his features to change?

He still looked the same.

Whereas she felt different from when he’d been put into the back of a cop car. That day, she’d willed him to tell her it would be okay, and he’d see her soon, that it was a big mistake and he’d be home in a few hours.

For days, she waited to hear something. No one would tell her a thing other than they handled it. So how was it handled when he got sent to prison? The day of his sentencing, she’d locked herself in Josh’s arms and cried for hours. Her high school boyfriend hadn’t understood. Why would he? He feared Lawless. He didn’t get their bond or her attachment to the biker. She’d never tried to explain or justify it because their bond was unique. It was private and the most precious thing in her life. And just like that, it was gone. And for a long time afterward, Angela drifted in nothingness, lost without him as a crutch against the hardship of life.

She loved him to distraction.

But she hated him too for her weakness, for not being able to get over him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She finally asked.

“You’re going home.”

“I’m going home?”

No, hi, Angela, how are you, Angela?

You’re going home.

It was typical of Lawless. He didn’t waste his time on useless words, never had, and she’d admired him for that. Until now, when he thought it was alright to drag her out.

The shutters to her heart and feelings came down, locking her behind a fortress of steel. “Thanks, but I don’t need a babysitter.”

She wanted a friend, partner, lover. But a babysitter? Not so much.

She could be a stubborn ass and go back inside, but there was nothing there for her either, so she started across the parking lot. Lawless moved like a ghost. As big as he was, he was silent, and she caught her breath when she realized he was behind her. She turned, cranked her head back to look at the towering man.

His eyes had always been watchful, as though he knew the purpose of the planet, and he was chill with it. But being under his microscope made her skin itchy. She couldn’t get into her car for a speedy getaway fast enough.

Where once she’d only ever wanted to be around Lawless, now she couldn’t wait to get away from him. It was self-preservation 101 at the most basic level.

“I want you to keep away from this place. Away from Benz.”

Like a dolt who hadn’t excelled in every psyche class and who wasn’t top of math and science, she repeated his words back as though the English language was foreign to her. “You want me to stay away from the casino and Jay?”

God, she despised her stupid girl brain right now.

It wasnother.

Angela rarely stumbled over her words, always felt confident in whatever she said, was the most confident woman in any room, and allowed no one to intimidate her. However, plenty of idiot boys had tried to when they discovered how effortlessly clever she was. It wasn’t bragging, but boys were idiots when they thought a woman was above them intellectually.

“Yes,” he rasped, and the tone shot through her like a bullet to where she shivered on impact.

“Do I look like a kid to you?”

Wrong thing to say when those devastating eyes skimmed over her from top to toe, making Angela remember what very little she was wearing. Her tits rose and plunged with her erratic breathing, and the very tips of them ached.

Her reaction to him was as visceral as it came.

And because she needed to cut the bungee cord like now, she unlocked the car door, focused somewhere over Lawless’ shoulder as she told him. “I’m glad you’re free. Goodbye, Lawless.”

It felt like the goodbye she could never tell him the day he left her life.

It was anyone’s guess how she made it across town and up the mountain in one piece, because Angela didn’t recall a moment of the journey at all.