I swallow hard as a million different emotions hit me all at once. Somehow, I manage to compile a reply, fighting against my shaking fingers. Where will you stay?
Wherever the fuck I want, he responds within seconds. With whoever the fuck I want.
I clench my jaw, knowing that I’m reacting just how he wants me to. Hurt.
All I can think of to type back is a pathetic plea. Bonnie would make a fitting rebound, but…
Don’t use Mara to punish me.
Don’t play the victim, he counters. She’s a big girl and can handle herself. But can you? Gino’s men won’t fall for those bunny eyes. Don’t. Be. A. Dumbass.
He’s right—and knowing that stings more than any insult. Sighing, I look up and try to guess my location in relation to his shop. I head there slowly, not out of guilt or a sense of duty. Mainly pure self-preservation and a niggling, selfish impulse that won’t let my thumbs leave the cell phone’s screen.
Liam is a friend, I find myself typing. The excuses keep coming one after the other, written without any pretty prose—just stark honesty. I used him to make you jealous. I won’t deny that.
Holy fuck, Rafe snipes, his hostility palpable even through the screen. Is that the truth? Give the woman a goddamn medal. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I aim to be balls deep in some pussy. Preferably one belonging to a bitch without a “Liam.”
Again, I flinch as his barb hits its target.
Beyond the cruelty, I have to admit that I’m impressed by the extent of his vocabulary. In fact, I think he’s deliberately trying to provoke me on that front, proving once more that he’s not the punk he pretends to be.
So in the spur of the moment, I drop my own guard and copy his tactic.
I express the one thing I don’t think he expects from me—the truth.
You scare me, I confess, hitting send before I can rethink the message.
His next reply—if he’s preparing one at all—doesn’t come right away this time. Tearing my gaze from my phone, I spot a familiar street sign and feel some shred of relief. I’m near his shop already, and I slip into the alley, approaching it from the back instead of the front. It takes me a few seconds of fumbling with his keys before I get the door open and enter his apartment.
When I sink onto the couch, he still hasn’t replied. I exchange my clothes for a nightshirt and enter his room, crawling onto the bed.
Still no answer.
Because I do trust you, I add, letting my fingers linger over every letter until I finally hit send.
Judging from how quickly his next reply comes, he’s been anticipating as much.
Lying. Fucking around. Treating me like a dirty little secret. Some definition of trust, he says.
While being “balls deep in pussy”? I can’t tell. It startles me just how much the prospect stings. Him with someone else. Another woman tracing the swirls of his tattoo with avid interest. Someone else moaning into his ear. Clawing at his back. Someone else in his arms, relishing his heat.
Mara?
Bonnie?
An entirely different woman?
It doesn’t matter. In this arena, he’s resorting to his preferred weapon of choice—sex.
I don’t want to be with Liam, I admit, fully aware of how pathetic continuing this conversation might seem. Someone like Mara would probably block his number and go on with her night. She wouldn’t beg.
But Mara never saw the man he is beneath the mask. Even if I wrote off his bravado and swagger, I couldn’t escape one glaring image in my head—his face when he saw me with Liam. That rage wasn’t faked. Or the pain.
I hurt him.
So I keep typing, even at the expense of my pride. I don’t want you to be my dirty little secret. I want to be with you.
I see the flashing symbol indicating he’s responding in real-time. My breath sticks in my throat, staying there as the seconds pass before the symbol vanishes without another message. For a minute. Longer.
Ironically words are supposed to be my medium. My outlet. My one way of getting my intentions out into the world unfiltered.
But there’s no pretty way to spin what I’ve done to him. No way to wiggle out of this web of lies. In a moment like this, I can only show him.
My heart races as I sit up and strip my shirt without thinking through the consequences. Adrenaline feeds through my blood, but doesn’t provide any extra confidence. I’m scared. Niggling paranoia mocks me with all the ways this moment could be violated. Branden could have snuck in somehow and hidden another camera, spying on me from a distance.
It would certainly explain why he hasn’t already broken down the door and dragged me back to his home by my hair.
But for the first time in my life, another fear takes precedence over my apprehension of him. It’s simple and selfish at its core—I like being free. I relish every minute spent away from him.
And even if he’s done with me, I don’t want to lose the one person who made this possible. Sucking in a breath, I manipulate the camera to face me and strike the shutter button. A heartbeat later, the resulting image floods the screen.
She’s a world apart from Rafe’s beautiful, stylistic image.
This figure is one-hundred percent how I see myself. Me. Wide-eyed and unsure, my shirt off, breasts bare. My body exposed.
All of the reasons not to send it race through my mind, forming a mantra of sorts. If anyone could use this against me, it would be him. As blackmail when he grows bored of me. As leverage over my brother and his position as an officer. As pure fodder to feed his stud reputation.
The list goes on and on.
But the more I stare at myself, the more nuances I pick up
