“I have to go.”
“But we just got started.”
“I can’t do this, Wesley. It was a mistake.”
Her words wound me. “Nothing about us has ever been a mistake, Poppy. You wouldn’t have let me fuck you if you weren’t feeling something too.”
She takes another step backward, shaking her head the whole time. “You don’t get it, Wesley. I don’t feel anything anymore. I’m numb. Nothing more than a cancerous tumor in this world. Kissing you was nothing more than a momentary lapse of judgment.”
“And the blow job?”
“A peace offering that should’ve ended with a broken dick.”
There she is.
“And everything else?” I question. “Was that a lapse of judgment too?”
She pauses, staring at me with eyes too afraid to give in. “That was me testing the waters of something that will only poison me.”
“Damn, you really know how to wound a guy.”
She moves closer to the edge of the alley. “Just stop chasing me, Wes.”
My body takes a daring move toward her. “That’s not gonna happen, Poppy.”
“Then you leave me no choice. If I see you again, I’ll wound you for real.”
My eyes widen. “You don’t mean that.”
For a second, she shifts, almost like she’s second guessing her own words. “I have no other choice. You can’t save me, Wes. So, just stop trying. What happened between us today was a mistake.” Her voice drops to a painful whisper. “One that will live with me forever.”
Then she’s gone, rushing out of the alley like nothing happened. And the worst part? Even though I want to believe what she said was a lie, deep down in my heart, I know if she seesme again, she’ll do everything in her power to push me away… possibly even kill me if she has to.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Poppy
I can still taste his lips as I rush inside the safety of the Misfits secret compound, my heart thundering like it’s about to explode inside my chest. I didn’t expect to let him in so easily, but there’s something about Wesley I just can’t shake. It’s like he’s meant to be mine, even though I’ll do whatever it takes to keep him from getting any closer.
It’s safer for both of us that way.
Warden and a few others are waiting for me when I arrive. Arturo has been gone for at least two weeks, and Warden has made it his personal mission to make me his little lap dog while he’s gone. The last two guys he sent out to sell product got pinched by the cops, so they recruited me, knowing they could pull me in by offering me a taste of the merchandise in exchange for selling it on the streets. What I didn’t expect was the heat that would come with it, or the dark place it would bring me back to every time I left the safety of their compound to do a deal.
Without saying anything, Warden nods towards the door of their meeting room, barely giving me a chance to catch my breath as he indicates I have no choice but to follow.
Fuck.
The second the door closes behind us, I’m pushed from behind and forced to sit in a chair at the end of the table, facing men who only know how to scowl and cause me pain.
“Did you think I wouldn’t know?” Warden shouts, slamming his hands down on the table. “Did you think I wouldn’t hear?”
Fear consumes me as my pulse races beneath my hoodie, everything colliding at once.
“Where’s my fucking money, Poppy?”
I throw down the few bills that I have, but it’s not the amount he expected.
“Where’s the rest?”
