Chapter 44
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RAYDEN (27YRS)
Even though I made the decision to walk away from Lorenzo, I hadn’t expected the actual effort required to move my feet away from his study would be that difficult. The steps heavier with each one forward but I did it. Surprisingly, Jardin didn’t ask for Zena when I had his things packed and carried him upstairs to the chopper. Neither did Nina who I offered to come work for me, and she agreed.
We were a few feet away from the chopper when the words, “Take them down” rang through the building followed a second later by the deafening sound of gunfire echoing through the cold fall air, demolishing my memory of the picture-perfect sea views I was about to leave behind.
As Nina and I ran for cover and Jardin began crying, only one thought crashed through my mind. Where the fuck was Lorenzo? Although a warning clanged at the back of my head to get the fuck out of there, I couldn’t. I had to make sure he was okay. Tugging a crying Nina behind me, I ducked into the stairwell I knew led down to the panic room I’d discovered during my tour of the place.
When I was sure Nina and Jardin were safe and secured behind doors that required a code to open, I went in search of Lorenzo. I didn’t expect to race around one of the hallways in time to see him about to take a bullet. I’d given no thought to my actions when I launched myself at him and sent us both sprawling. Nor had I anticipated putting a bullet in a man’s head to save Lorenzo, but I did. Shockingly, I didn’t feel remorse or fear, only relief I was able to pull the trigger before Tino ended Lorenzo’s life.
Now, as we stood staring at each other, I wasn’t sure how to convince him or myself that a relationship with him would never work. I’d killed a man to save Lorenzo because as unbelievable as it sounded to my ears, I was in love with him. Yet the declaration sounded tedious, like an unwanted surrender and I knew he was hiding the effect it had on him.
His smile didn’t reach his eyes as he asked. “But you’re not staying?”
My throat tightened. “I can’t.”
A look of disappointment washed over him, and he let out a heavy sigh. “Why?”
“You know why.” I didn’t want to answer him because I wasn’t sure if I believed my rationale. Love was supposed to be blind, right? We were in the twenty first century, sexual choices should never be judged. Unfortunately, it was human nature to criticize. “I should go.”
I’d only taken a step before his hand snuck out and banded around my stomach then his chest pressed tight against my back, his hold a vice grip around me. “Don’t,” he whispered into my nape, inhaling deeply as though committing my scent to memory.
When he did it again, I wondered if, just like me, he could taste my scent with his eyes closed. Sense my approach before I appeared, felt my touch before my skin met his. Because I sure as fuck could with him. In response to my silent questions, his free hand closed around my throat, squeezing lightly and angling my head up. His lips crashed to mine, his tongue demanding entrance as it breached the seam of my lips. He’d kissed me before, but this was different. Hungry. Scorching. Desperate.
I groaned into his mouth, and he drank my sounds with a growl of his own. His hard on pushing into my ass, showing me his need, the effect I had on him. It would’ve been easy to deny had it not been for the hard bulge in my jeans, now straining against my zipper, eager for his touch. Then I remembered Zena’s words and the ensuing devastation. I broke the kiss, but his hold kept me from moving away. His brow fell to mine on a deep exhale. And for just a moment I savored his touch, his hold, his command of my body’s will to respond until he lifted his head and his eyes searched mine.
“Walk away now and I’ll fall, Rayden. I’ll forget how to live. I’ll forget what it means to be happy. Walk away from me only because you’re okay with watching me die from loving you.” The sincerity in his words rolled over me, hard in its impact.
The air stuttered on its way to lungs clogged with emotions as I forgot to breath, letting those words sink in. I resisted the need to clutch my thrumming heart. The look in his eyes, something I’d never seen before. Not with Zena, not with Sianna, not even with my loving family. It was a gilded promise, like he’d lay the ocean at my feet if he could.
“What guarantee do we have that this thing will work between us,” I heard myself asking.
“Love doesn’t come with a guarantee of happiness.” He let out a low sigh. “But this is the only way to know for sure, to step into it wholeheartedly. To seize the moments we’ve shared and embrace it for what it is. Pure, unbridled affection that would only know the bounds we place on it.”
I stepped away and he let me go. “I want to, but I’ve been broken so many times, I’m afraid to trust. I don’t think I can survive another hurt.”
“What if I can promise you’ll never hurt again.”
Uncertainty trickled down my spine. “You can’t make that promise, Lorenzo. You have to understand. I don’t know how to trust the people I love. I never had an opportunity to. I’m afraid if you break me, I’ll lose my shit.”
