Page 23 of Trapped With You

The jarring stroke of Mother Nature’s wrath lit up the inside of the library and in that small fraction of time, I caught Cade’s face twisting with anguish. “Who else…after me?”

I was rendered speechless by the realization that his hurt stemmed from the fact that he thought I was talking aboutothermen.

Clearly, Cade was recounting that summer night a few weeks ago where we ran into each other at the bar. I’d put on a great show for him.

I should let him believe that’s what changed. The number of men I’ve taken to my bed. But the truth was I couldn’t bear the touch of anyone except for Cade. And I despised myself for it.

Healing happened in stages. Parts of me were patched up enough to go about my day-to-day, though I was nowhere near ready to take on another lover. My soul still lived in the plane whereweonce thrived—a place where Cade and I spent years decorating a future that would no longer see fruition.

And it was all his fucking fault.

I couldn’t believe he had the audacity to appear heartbroken at me moving on.

“I don’t owe you any answers, Cade. Not after you ruined us and betrayed me.”

He flinched.

My statement struck a chord.

I’d never convey this to Cade, but what had actually changedwere the scars on my heart. They morphed me into this new version, forcing me to face the music and grow up in the span of three months from the teenager who put trivial things on a pedestal to a young adult who understood the consequences and weight of her actions.

Taking advantage of Cade’s momentary silence, I darted out of the romance section and into the horror aisle.

Behind me, Cade’s angry strides echoed as he asked raggedly, “Did you fuck that bastard from the bar to spite me after I beat his ass?”

My finger skimming over the hardbound copy ofDracula,I glanced at him over my shoulder. Acting blasé while visceral agony cascaded over his features. He was getting all verklempt over the thought of me sleeping with another guy. Like the thought of it was so excruciating, he couldn’t withstand it.

Good. Feel pain. Feel what you fucking put me through when I caught you with that other girl.

“What if I did fuck him?” I returned wickedly. “What are you going to do about it, gangster?”

I hadn’t fucked the guy from the bar, but he didn’t need to know that.

A cold, lethal smirk carved over Cade’s face.

He closed the distance between us in three steps, backing my body into the shelf. His hand reached out to cup my jaw and his thumb stroked my cheek in a loving manner.

“I’m going to track him down and chop him to pieces,” he rasped so softly, it barely sounded like a threat. “Then I’ll deliver his head to you on a silver platter, Ella. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? My little bloodthirsty princess.”

My breath hitched from the admission. It appeased my darker side. The one that loved it when Cade got revenge on people who mistreated me.

There was something exhilarating about a morally grey man who protected you and worshipped the ground you walked on.

White knights did not hold a candle to my dark prince.

Cade Killian Remington was the only one I had ever wanted. My dangerous addiction. My favourite sin. Andmi alma gemela. I feared, in this lifetime, I was wretchedly cursed to always long for him.

Before I could throw an insulting remark, my gaze drifted over to a faint glimmer at the base of his throat.

A heady buzz rushed through my veins—part euphoria, part swivet—at the unexpected sight of a gold band threaded through a thin chain, looped around his neck like an inseparablekeepsake.

It was the promise ring I gifted to him on his eighteenth birthday.

The one that marked him infinitely as mine.

He still wore it.

I nearly swayed, my knees feeling weak.