Because twelve years ago, on a warm summer night in August, not much different than tonight, I held an angel in my arms and let the shadows in her eyes—the ones that fit so well with mine—convince me trouble could be a good thing. A place where love could be forged in fire and not come out in a heap of ashes. A place where twin flames could exist together without burning everything around them down.
Her shadows were wrong, but I was too busy pressing a lifetime of hopes and dreams into the smooth creases of her skin with my desperate kisses and reverent touches to notice. I didn’t know then that she wasn’t mine to have.
Just mine to want.
To love.
To wish for.
To dream of while she belonged to my best friend, my brother. The one man I would never dream of hurting, even though letting him have her felt like flaying myself open over and over again.
Careful, angel,I think silently.You might prefer the asshole to what you’ve just awakened.
Chapter 11
Dominic
Then
My plan for the next four years was simple: go to college, room with Eric, and graduate with a degree that would allow me to make enough money to never have to go back to living in a house with Gabriel Alexander again. The last part is kind of irrelevant given the sizable life insurance check that’s been sitting in my bank account since last year when Mom died, but I’m still not taking any risks, because ending up in a house with my dad would cost me what little sanity I have left.
The past twelve months have been hard enough, but living with the piece of shit who might as well have put her in the grave himself made it all unbearable. Listening to him weep over pictures of her and romanticize their history. Sitting through his attempts to try and walk me down a rose-colored memory lane like I didn’t live through all of their dysfunctional bullshit.
The lies.
The cheating.
The slaps across her face.
The bruises from his hands around her neck.
It all slowed down when I got old enough to shield her body with mine. And then when she got sick, breast cancer in the advanced stages, it stopped altogether. He just transformed into this loving, gentle man who doted on his sick wife, tending to her every need with the kind of devotion he refused to give her for years. It was sickening to watch him, knowing all those years of abuse could’ve been avoided if he hadn’t woken up every day and chosen to be a mean, heartless bastard.
For all of those reasons—and a few I’m probably not far enough along in therapy to fully understand—I have to stick to my plan. A plan that didn’t include attending frat parties with Chris, the resident assistant on my hall, or being brought to my knees by the walking contradiction that is the woman sitting on my lap right now.
I came out here to avoid her. To get away from the white dress, long legs, and sexy mess of curls flowing down her back. To avoid the inevitable moment when the air around me was replaced by her heavenly scent and the sweet, fruity notes wafting up from her skin mixed a little too well with the smoky flavor of the liquor on her breath. I don’t know how, but the moment I saw her, I knew she would spell disaster for the plan. Probably because none of the bullet points included feeling this way about a stranger.
Except she doesn’t feel like a stranger. She feels like home. She feels like the only person who has ever looked at me and known me in a single second. She feels like every dream I’ve ever had, every wish I’ve ever made, every oath I’ve ever sworn to keep all rolled up into one perfect being. All real, and all mine from the moment she sat her perfect ass on my lap and dared me to come and burn the world down with only her eyes.
Fuck the plan.
I curl my arm around her waist, pulling her deeper into me and inviting her to continue the conversation she started when she sat down and told me I looked like trouble. She smiles and tosses back the rest of her drink. “Well, are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Trouble.”
“That depends, angel.”
Shit.I didn’t mean to let the nickname slip. I don’t even know her real name, so it’s strange to already be giving her one. There’s something overly familiar and possessive in my tone that should scare us both, but I can only think about how right the word feels on my tongue and how pleased she looks because I said it.
She bites her lip. “On?”
“What kind of trouble you’re looking for.”
She leans forward and sets the empty cup on the windowsill behind me. The movement causes her breasts to come dangerously close to brushing my cheek. I stay still, not wanting to startle her by nuzzling into the most inviting cleavage I’ve ever had the pleasure of being this close to. When she settles back into my hold, she sighs audibly and tilts her head back to look up at the stars.
“This is going to sound weird, but there’s this girl who lives inside of me. She spends all of her time trying to be perfect and do everything right so everyone else can be happy with who she is, how she looks, and what she does. I’ve spent my whole life letting her drive the bus because I thought she knew what she was doing, but she doesn’t. Shereallyfucking doesn’t.”
