My eyes narrow as I turn to face a pair of big hazel eyes. The girl they belong to blinks slowly, effortlessly gracious, before they glance around me, as if I’ve just caught her doing something she wasn’t supposed to do. Her arms wrap around her body, and I instinctively cock my head to the right, observing her.
This can’t be…
My mouth opens to say something, but I find myself wanting to hear her voice instead.
When she makes eye contact again, I realize we’ve been staring at each other in silence. She’s probably stunned to see me because I’m wearing my uniform.
But I’m fucking lost for words at how beautiful she is.
“Dove Finnegan?” I finally ask.
This can’t be her. It can’t be, because in the few times she was mentioned, Cole’s nickname for her has always been “kid.”The kid is a total nerd, he used to say. Or on the phone, when they talked:I’d better not see a scratch on that Honda when I come home, kid. I mean it.
But the young woman staring back at me isn’t a kid.
Ash-brown hair tumbles in soft waves around her heart-shaped face, her skin visibly soft like butter. Her lower lip trembles as she looks back at me, and she tries to stop it by pushing it between her teeth, sending an immediate shockwave of heat throughout my body. I scowl at the feeling. I don’t recognize it.
A faint redness creeps into the whites of her eyes. They’re surrounded by dark circles, which look miserable on such a pretty face. She’s either working too much or something’s stressing her out.
I look down at her slender hands, her fingertips stained with dark oil. Then my eyes glance behind her, where Cole’s old Honda seems to have seen better days since there’s smokecoming out of the hood. It’s a fucking mess, and I find myself wanting to take care of it. Take care ofher.
“That’s me,” she whispers, her voice small and timid and warm, just like I expected it to be.
She looks so angelic, so fucking pure as she looks up at me through a web of eyelashes. My fingers itch to drag her into my chest and undo all of that.Me. And no one else.
Would she even let me? Or would she bang her fists into my chest, wanting to get away?
The sound of a passing car gets my attention, and I lift my chin to stop myself from staring at her. She seems anxious, but hopeful. I know damn well she won’t be looking at me like this after I tell her what I’m here to say.
“Are your parents around?”
She takes a moment to decide if she should tell me, as if her body sets off alarm bells about being near me. As it fucking should—though I won’t be the one to tell her that.
“Okay.” I nod once, holding her stare. “Here’s what you’re going to do, then, Dove. You’re going to go inside, bring me a glass of water, and then sit on the stairs in front of your house while you listen to what I have to say. Do you understand?”
She nods back, and the praise slips from my lips faster than I can fucking control it.
“Good girl.”
My jaw clenches on its own, because I know what those words mean to me, even if they mean nothing to her. Why thefuckwould I call her that?
I contemplate just dropping the news on her now so I can leave, but all my thoughts die when I see that the color of her cheeks has changed. From pale to blood red, all in the span of seconds. She… heard me. She fucking heard me. And not just what I said, buthowI said it—shamelessly, like we’re in someother place, in some other universe that doesn’t revolve around the death of someone we’ve both lost.
I drag a hand down my face and let her do what I asked. She walks past me on wobbly feet, whisking her shoulder against my arm. And in that fraction of a second, I can’t help but lean in closer, the warmth of her skin and the sweet scent that wafts around her calling me in like honeybees drawn to nectar.
I’ve never in my life paid attention to such an insignificant detail. And so, I worry. I fucking worry that this innocent touch and the way this woman looks at me might just be enough to damn me to a lifetime of obsession.
My eyes follow her until she disappears behind the door. I can feel my heart thrashing against my ribs like a bird in a bower of bones. My cock strains against my uniform pants, craving the sight of her. But I take a few aimless steps in front of her house, reeling back my need and pushing it down into the darkest pits of my mind.
There are a million reasons I can’t have this woman. I don’t do relationships, for one. I can’t. My life doesn’t even have the guarantee of tomorrow, let alone being with the same person for the rest of my life. I’d break her heart either way. And if by some miracle I did have the guarantee of staying alive, it wouldn’t be next to her. She’s my best friend’s sister, and I know exactly what I’m made of.
If I had her, I’d fucking break her—clip those angelic wings and sink my teeth into that sweetness she carries within her. I’d want her heart raw in the palm of my hand and her body dripping with my cum from all her tight little holes long after I’m done using her. I’d want her mind bound to mine until she can’t make out where her will ends and mine begins.
Every breath, every fear, every fleeting hope—she’d hand them all over, and I’d give her no other choice. And then… then I’dshow her off to the fucking world, so they all know who owns her.
Dove enters my field of vision with a glass in her shaky hands, and I nod my approval—she’ll need that water. She then sits down on the porch, and I come back to my senses. Her brother is dead. It snaps me back to the task at hand like a spring.
Big, round tears coat her eyelashes and stream down her cheeks as I make out the words and tell her what happened and who I am. I have to lie to her, of course, and tell her he died on the battlefield. Cole’s family is just as in the dark about our plans as my family or Maddox’s. All they know is we’re in the military, fighting for our country against the Coalition, who attacked the Ridge.
