“He put his hands on you, so I taught him a lesson.”
“You can’t go around killing every guy I talk to or touch,” she argued.
“If the hands areunwanted—” I crowded her against the brick wall of the alleyway. “Watch me.”
I dipped my face and she tipped hers up, erasing the distance between us.
Her exhales were now my inhales.
My senses were permeated with her decadent scent.
And just like that, the edge I tried to take off with mycigarette returned tenfold.
This was the first time in weeks that we’d been this close. A knot of yearning unfurled in my core.
With her maneater outfit, smoky makeup, and anger rolling off her body in waves, Ella was nothing short of devastatingly beautiful.
She looked like a dark angel ready to rip my heart out.
Heat and tension escalated in the minuscule space separating our bodies. Her eyes dropped down to my lips then back up to my eyes.
I licked my bottom lip.
We moved closer instinctively until our chests brushed.
I always believed that Ella was my reward for everything I’d been through. I wanted to marry this girl. She was my happily ever after. How could fate be so cruel as to give me the only thing I ever wanted and then rip her out of my arms like it was nothing?
“Who said they were unwanted?” She cocked an eyebrow.
Goading me? Fuck, it was working. “I saw you slap his hand away and cuss him out, Ella,” I spat.
“Hm, so you decided to send Nate to do your dirty work?”
“Would you rather I have come over to stab him myself?”
It wasn’t the first time I killed someone for her. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
She knew it too.
Her eyes darkened, the blue in her right eye vivid as ever. “No. I would prefer you leave me alone. We’re over. For good.” Then she chin-nodded in the direction of fuckface. “And I don’t need you to defend my honour, yet you still went ahead with your caveman tendencies. If anyone catches you, you’re fucked, Cade.”
“Spending the night in the slammer would be worth it, pretty girl.” I pushed a lone strand behind her ear, resisting the urge tokiss those pouty lips.
“I’m being serious.” She glared at me. “You’ve done enough damage for one night. Leave before you get caught.”
Witnesses be damned. I wasn’t afraid of spending the night in a cell. Plus, Uncle Vance or Josh would bail me out. It wasn’t a big deal.
“Careful, Ella,” I tutted. “For someone who claims to be done with me, you sound an awful lot like you still care.” The way her body relaxed into mine with muscle memory spoke volumes. She was still as possessive of me as I was of her. “Now the truth: why did you come outside?”
Did she follow me out of the bar because she was desperate to get another glimpse of me? The same way I was desperate for a glimpse of her?
Suddenly, a mean smile curled over her mouth. “Certainly not for you, Cade. I hate you, remember?”
Pain pricked through my chest like a thousand little needles.
If she really came out for fuckface, I was going to paint the town red with his blood and drown his dead body in the Atlantic Ocean.
“Then why?” I growled.
