There’s a fine line between love and hate.
It wasn’t until Seth spoke those words that I understood the true meaning of the phrase. We’ve walked that line for so long, and now it’s nearly invisible. Or maybe it wasn’t ever there. Since the day I met him, there’s been a connection I can’t explain, a draw so strong that every time we’d be in the same room, the air crackled with a charge, and my heart sped up. Quaking and quivering.
That is not hatred. It’s lust and need and something else. Something I need to decide on my own if it’s real.
Because I won’t settle for anything less than real.
“You need to get a grip on life before you spiral out of control, Victoria—before these emotions take you down,” I whisper under my breath.
The door flies open, banging against the wall, and when my gaze meets Seth’s. We stare at each other, electricity charging the space between us.
A shockwave.
I feel this man all the way to my core. Attraction and years of something so strong building behind us it’s impossible to ignore any longer.
This. Whatever this is between us is what’s crazy. I’m far from it. I’m just a woman living in grief and not knowing how to deal with it.
“I’m not letting you hide from me in this room. Did you hear a word I said to you out there? Open up, or I will walk away and let you live in your misery. Is that what you want?” Seth’s soft tone contradicts the harshness of his words.
No, it’s not what I want. Not by a long shot.
Envy floods my system. The thought of him walking away and into the arms of another woman makes me want to vomit.
Seth’s eyes scan my face, and for a moment, the boldness in him seems to give way to desperation before it changes to that offer and warning again.
I try to think of something to say, but my mind goes blank. I’m not begging him to stay, yet I don’t want him to leave either.
A dry chuckle falls from Seth’s mouth. My gaze drifts to those full, sensual lips. My body swaying at the way he fills the doorway, his arms fixed against the jamb, his head tilted to the side, jaw set, expression unreadable as he watches me.
“Fine, since you’ve forgotten how to talk, I’ll decide for you. I’ll leave but don’t think I’m keeping my suspicions about you dying inside over finding your family dead and bottling your grief. I’ll tell Dray, and that’s a goddamn promise. I’ll live with you not wanting me, Victoria, because I don’t have any other choice, but I can’t live with allowing you to let your emotions eat you from the inside out.”
My heart stops, and my lungs seize to breathe in air. Whether Seth is bluffing or not in an effort to push me closer to the edge, that’s the last thing I want him to do.
“No, please don’t do that.” The words come out in a rushing breath of panic. I can’t have anyone worrying about me when they’re mentally suffering themselves.
“Then open up and give me some of your pain. Let me shield you. Protect you. We can take it one second, minute, hour, a day at a time. Breaking down the tiniest portions. Whatever you want.”
“I don’t know what I want. I’m a mess.”
“You are. A beautiful mess who knows exactly what she wants, yet you’re lost. I’m trying to help you find your way back the only way I know how. Let go of the grief, Victoria. Let me carry your pain. Let me take care of you.
All I caught out of what he said is pain.
It reverberates through the room just as strong as Seth giving me another glimpse of the side of him I’ve seen so many times. Of who he is underneath all the dark that makes him dangerous for me.
My throat suddenly goes dry as my mind fills with blood-soaked images until that’s all I see—the bullet wounds in David’s back. So many of them, as if the man refused to die before he saved his family. The gaping hole in his skull. My sweet little nephew’s scrunched-up face. He must have been screaming for his parents to save him. My sister and Mom covered in so much red. The snow beneath them the brightest shade.
“Give me it all. Tell me why you’re so afraid not to want me the way I do you. These feelings aren’t one-sided, Victoria.”
No, they aren’t. He’s just had more time to process them than I have because my life has been turned upside down.
I shut my eyes, willing those awful images away. Seth isn’t going to let me hold my grief in anymore. He’ll hound me like a dog until I cave, and I don’t want to hold it in, but I can’t seem to let the real reason why I’m scared of the thought of him and me slip out of my mouth.
It’s stuck behind my grief.
“What do you want from me? I mean, look at me, Seth.” I toss my hands up in the air, giving him one of my fears regarding him and me. I’ve never been ashamed of my body, not even when the bullies called me names. Seth has seen every inch of me, and those big strong hands of his couldn’t stop touching my hips. But how could he want someone like me when I’ve heard about his taste in women.
I’m nothing like them, and I never will be.
“Believe me, Victoria, I am looking at you. Don’t divert. Don’t use your body as an excuse. Because that body of yours makes me rock fucking hard. The way you smell, the way you
