Chapter Two:
present day
Jesse
“Jesse! Stop it!” Laney cried, her anger and frustration with me obvious by the tears running down her face and the fact that her hands were balled into fists at her sides. “I know you don’t mean it—you’re still in there somewhere, I know you are.”
I paced the room, my whole fucking body feeling like it was on fire because of the anger that was burning through me. I dragged my hands through my hair and gritted my teeth, trying to hold in everything I wanted to say.
I’d regret it.
I always did.
Laney came toward me, her hand outstretched, her eyes beseeching. “I can’t deal with you when you’re like this, just calm down, baby.”
She was close then, close enough to touch me, but of course she didn’t. She knew better than to get too close to me when I was like this. I’d never hit her, and never intended to, but fuck knew what I would do.
The anger had been building in me for the past three months—a constant inferno ready to explode. I’d kill everyone when it did,—I knew I would. So I’d held it in the best I could. But it was never enough; it always seeped out a little.
Besides, I wanted her to hate me, didn’t I? I wanted that look in her eyes to die. It was for the best—at least for her. The only way to protect her was for her to see what a fucking asshole I was and finally hate me.Thenshe would let me go.
The sound of Casa’s bike roaring outside sang to my ears and Laney looked nervously toward the door, her eyes looking even sadder because she knew I was going to bail on her, again. I always did when shit went bad between us. It was my way—our way. It was either that or I’d end up killing someone because I couldn’t control my temper.
I rolled my shoulders, feeling them click and pop in their sockets, and I willed myself to calm down. Deep down, somewhere below my simmering rage, I knew that I was being an asshole. My girl loved me—always had—and I was trying to push her away. One day she’d meet someone else, someone that wasn’t fucked up like me. She’d get married and have their babies and live happily motherfucking ever after.
That’s what I wanted, right?
Yet despite me wanting to do the right thing, I was still a possessive fucker that wanted to kill every other man alive when I closed my eyes and imagined another man’s hands pawing at her too-soft skin, her tight ass and flat stomach. And her mouth—those perfect lips that kissed me better every night—wrapped around another man’s—
“I gotta get outta here, Laney,” I said, turning from her, anger still itching through my veins like heroin.
Laney’s soft hand reached out and touched me, gently at first and then firmer, until she pressed herself against my back, feeling bolder by the second. Her hands grazed around my waist, over my leather cut as she clung to me.
“Don’t go, Jesse. Stay with me, please,” she said between kisses across my shoulders. “I don’t know why you’re doing this to us, but please stop. There’s only so much I can take before you break us.”
I even considered it, the temptation of her sweet touch and her hot breath enough to make me feel something other than just anger for a few blissful seconds. I closed my eyes and pressed the heels of my hands to my eyelids, wishing I could push all the bad away so it just left me and Laney and all the good shit we could accomplish together if I just stopped fucking it up for us both.
“I know you’re hurting, baby, and I am too. Let me help you,” she whispered, and I knew she was crying again.
But she couldn’t help me. No one could help me. Not after what I’d done. And if she knew, she’d think the same thing too. So this was how it had to be.
I shrugged out from under her grip and didn’t even attempt to rein it back in as I slammed my fist into the wall directly in front of me. Laney let out a sharp cry as my hand went through the dry board, the material crumbling around my fist.
“You just don’t fuckin’ get it, Laney,” I said, pulling my hand free and walking away.
I left the house, slamming the door so hard I thought it bounced back open, but fuck it, I didn’t care. My boots stomped over the flowerbeds and grass that Laney had loved so much about this house, and I didn’t care about that either.
I didn’t fucking care about anything anymore.
Casa was sitting on his bike outside, talking to the piece of ass from next door—Kiera or some shit like that. He saw my stormy expression and whispered something in her ear, and she turned to look at me, her eyes bugging out at my furious scowl. Casa slapped her on the ass and she turned tail and left immediately.
I climbed on my bike, pulled my helmet on and started it, barely able to hear anything but the rushing of my blood.
“Everything okay, brother?” Casa asked.
I looked at the window, seeing Laney standing there, the curtain pulled back far enough for her to look out. Goddamn, she was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen, especially then with the sun starting to fade and casting an orange glow over our house, over her. Her hair hung long and dark down either side of her face, all the way down to that tiny waist of hers, but it was tucked just behind her ears. Tears streaked her beautiful features, and the sick part of me thought she looked even more beautiful with those tears on her cheeks, because those tears were for me. I owned them.
“Nah, brother, things are not okay,” I said. “Not at all.”
