Page 97 of Deadly Blooms (Psychic Unraveled #1)

I gritted my teeth and hopped down from the counter, pain flashed up my leg. I snatched a towel, not even feeling it, and stepped in front of him.

“You’re seriously just gonna walk out?” I snapped, scrubbing at my skin like I could erase this moment from it. “After that? ”

He didn’t even look at me—just stared past. Just like before, like I wasn’t standing there, bare and bleeding and begging for something real.

Each second he stayed silent, the madder I got.

Finally, he spoke—and his words knocked the wind right out of me. “Max, I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”

I went still.

“Can’t do what, Graham?” I threw the towel on the floor. “Because I sure as hell don’t know what we are even doing! What is this? A mistake? A meltdown? A mercy fuck?”

His silence stretched thick and suffocating.

I took a breath, forced myself to steady—even as everything else inside felt like it was cracking.

“Sometimes I feel like I don’t even register to you—except when it’s convenient. Like all I am is a job with the benefit of a good fuck now and then.”

My throat tightened, but I kept going—because if I stopped, I’d never say it.

“But then you hold my hand, or look at me like I’m more than just… cleanup duty. And I think—maybe we’re more than bodies. More than trauma bonding. Maybe even… lovers.”

I glanced past him, catching sight of Chester curled up on the bed like nothing was wrong—like the world wasn’t falling apart around him.

I was terrified to look Graham in the eye—because if he confirmed my worst fear, I wouldn’t come back from it.

“Or am I just the job? A complication you keep trying to manage with your dick?”

He scoffed—fists clenched, jaw set in stone. “That’s what you really think?”

I shook my head barely. “I don’t know what—or how—to think when it comes to you.”

“Do you have any idea what I’ve risked?” His voice rose as he spoke. “I got suspended. I defied direct orders to stay away from you.”

“Then why? ” My voice cracked. “Why did you stay?”

“Why do you think?” His voice snapped like a rubber band stretched too tight. “You really think I’d hang around for this long if I was here only for your pussy? You think I’d walk away when someone’s life was on the line? Jesus, Max —after everything, you still don’t know me?”

The breath left my lungs.

“Of course not.” The guilt hit me like a wall. I wasn’t trying to hurt him—but I did. And now I felt like the biggest bitch in Port Grey.

“I stayed because I care about you—because you’re a goddamn firestorm, and I can’t look away!”

He paced the bathroom like a caged animal, fingers raking through his damp hair, glaring at the fogged mirror, the floor, the ceiling—anywhere but me.

“You jump in with both feet before checking to see if the water’s boiling.

You don’t think—you just feel. And I get it, Max—I do, but it’s exhausting . ”

His voice wavered. He barely recovered before he kept going.

“You’re demanding. You make everything orbit around yourself without meaning to. You’re impatient. You’re selfish. You’re loud. You’re unpredictable.”

Each word hit like another blow.

And I just… stood there. Numb.

What the hell was happening?

Did I really just ask him if we were becoming more —only to be handed a laundry list of why he couldn’t stand me?

“Sorry I asked,” I muttered, bracing against the counter. My throat tightened as my insides splintered.

Graham gestured wildly, pacing like he was trying to outrun his own thoughts.

Then, suddenly, he turned, eyes locking with mine.

He moved in close again, planting both hands on the counter, caging me in.

His face inches from mine. I could see it now—the storm behind his eyes, all that gold tangled in the grey like lightning trying to break free.

He lifted a finger, pointed it straight at my chest.

“You piss me off. All. The. Time.” His voice shook—not with rage, but restraint.

“You don’t listen. Even when your goddamn life is on the line.

You make reckless look like a fucking hobby.

You drive me insane, Max. I can’t sleep.

I can’t eat. I can’t even do my fucking job without thinking about you. ”

He tore away from the sink like it burned him, dragging both hands through his wet hair, breath heaving. A strand fell into his eyes, and he cursed under his breath, wiping it aside.

“And your answer to everything is fucking magic, or ghosts, or this new premonition shit that you’ve got going on.

And maybe you’re right eighty percent of the time, but that other twenty?

It’s fucking terrifying. And you don’t care.

You just dive in. You think if you believe hard enough, everything will work out.

But real life doesn’t work like that—not for people like me. ”

I wasn’t sure I could take any more. He tore my heart out and crumpled it like it never meant a damn thing to him.

Ugh—! Why did I even ask?

But I bit my tongue. If I spoke. I’d cry. And I refused to let him see me fall apart— not like this.

Because it was obvious now.

He didn’t feel the same.

And once again, I did the unthinkable—I fell in love with a man that didn’t want me.

And just like before, it was going to destroy me.

“After I’ve spent all this time disobeying orders, watching you, protecting you, nearly getting shot—twice, stabbed, and enduring the freakiest Linda Blair, Exorcist shit I’ve ever seen—I still fucking stayed. And after all that, you think I don’t care? ”

He stood there, staring at the floor. Then at me. One hand braced on his hip, the other dragging across his forehead like he was trying to scrub the thoughts from his skull.

“Max…” his voice dropped. “I’ve felt things with you that I haven’t felt in a really, really , long time. I’m pretty sure I fucking love you. And I don’t think?—”

I gasped. The world froze. A surge of white-hot stars crackled through my chest, bursting at my shoulders, my toes, anywhere to try to escape my core. My heart skipped.

His voice faded.

What did he just say?

No.

No way.

We just had our first kiss.

Did Graham Locke just say he loved me?

“What did you just say?” I managed through quivering lips.

He exhaled—loud and sharp—like he hated himself already.

“I said… it wouldn’t surprise me if tomorrow you showed up at the precinct claiming a meth-head gnome kidnapped Chester, and your grandma—the fucking faerie queen—was holding him for ransom on the other side of the goddamn rainbow.”

I shook my head, “ What? No… before that.”

Graham stepped toward me, grabbed my arms, and pulled me against him. His touch was firm, but his face— God, his face—it softened like he was about to hand me his last piece of armor to shield myself.

“I said—” his jaw flexed, and he breathed out hard. “—I fucking love you, Max.”

He swallowed, his voice dipping low. “Never in my life has a woman turned me so inside out—so twisted up—that I forget how to breathe.”

And that was it. My brain short-circuited.

Graham. Locke. Loved. Me .

Not because of magic.

Not because he wanted something.

Not because I was broken and convenient.

Just… because he did. It was like gravity. Like he couldn’t not love me, even if he tried.

And just as that warmth started to bloom in my chest—it started to slip. That cold doubt. That ache of disbelief.

“You love me?” I whispered. My eyes stung as the weight of those words pressed against every cracked corner of my heart. What did this mean? What now?

“Yes,” he said, voice thick with something I’d never heard from him before—hope, maybe. Or fear. “I love you.”

He pulled me closer, slowly. His hand lifted to my face, tucking a strand of wet hair behind my ear with an aching gentleness that nearly undid me.

His thumb brushed along my jaw, then he tipped my chin until I was looking into those storm-cloud eyes. And then—he kissed me.

Not like before.

This kiss was softer, slower… but somehow it burned hotter. Like the words were still on his lips and he was trying to press them into mine. His mouth was warm, but his skin was cool where it brushed mine, and the contrast sent a shiver ripping down my spine.

I melted into it—into him— because this wasn’t about sex or survival or adrenaline anymore. This was something else.

Someone finally loved me.

I wrapped my arms around his neck. His hands slid to my waist, pulling me flush against him—and for a breath, we were everything. Warmth. Connection. Belonging.

But then—he pulled back.

His brow creased, his eyes now red-rimmed and full of regret. His lips parted and turned down at the corners like he was about to say something awful. That kiss still lingered on my lips when he whispered, “That’s why I can’t be with you.”

The words stabbed through my heart.

“What?” My voice cracked. “Why?”

He shook his head slowly, eyes shining with unshed tears.

“Why would you even tell me that you love me in the first place, if you’re just going to shove me away again?”

“Because of them .”

My stomach dropped.

“Who’s… them? ” The question barely left my mouth before the dread bloomed.

Graham swallowed hard.

“My wife and daughter.”

My heart plummeted.

“You’re married?!”

I threw my arms up, fury rising like wildfire. “Are you fucking kidding me? This—this is why men need to wear their goddamn wedding rings! We can’t trust any of you! But even then, we still can’t trust you! God, I can’t believe?—”

I gasped. A darker thought slipped in, fast and foul.

“Wait… oh no— no. You sick fuck! You’re cheating on her? On your wife?”

I grabbed the towel from the counter and started smacking him with it. Each hit landed between my words, punctuation by violence.

“Were you—cheating with me? With all the women before me? Am I the other fucking woman?!”

“Yes!” SMACK!

“I mean no!” WHAP!

“Max, for fuck’s sake—” SHOVE.

“I—” THWACK.

He caught the towel mid-swing, water spraying as he yanked it from my grip.

“Would you stop assaulting me for two goddamn seconds?!”