Not the oxygen tank. Not the cyanosis. Not the smell of stale air and menthol and loneliness.
The apologizing. Like she had to earn help. I sat in my car after shift and cried like an idiot for ten solid minutes.
You don’t have to say anything wise about it. I just wanted somebody to know.
Also I got a second job for a while, just to shore things up. Not glamorous. Tips-based. Men are awful. Women are worse. I smile until my cheeks hurt and come home smelling like fryer grease.
Still. Money is money.
And before you ask, no, I haven’t gone out with anyone from either job. The options are bleak.
—Reva
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
NASH
The roomaround us was built for indulgence. I know, because I designed it. I didn’t know it then, but I was building it for a woman like Reva—or someone just like her.
She’s exactly where I need her.
Bracketed between the two men I trust more than anyone else in the world, her pulse flutters visibly at her throat, her mouth swollen from Shiloh and Ever’s kisses, her body still humming from the edge they walked her to and left her on. She’s flushed, trembling, trying to drag herself back under control while the three of us watch her fail.
Good. Let her feel every second of our torment.
Let her stand there with all that want trapped inside her, nowhere to go, no relief in sight.
Ever stays behind her, one arm banded around her middle, broad and immovable. Shiloh lingers at her side, his mouth tipped in that mean little smile that says he enjoyed bringing her right to the brink and abandoning her there. He’d do it again, too. Happily.
She left.
That fact is still a live wire under my skin, hotter than anger and meaner than fear. She slipped out in the dark and walked herself into a room full of men who would have looked at her and seen prey dressed in silk and defiance.
We noticed.
I don’t think there’s a single damn thing I’ll ever miss when it comes to her.
“You left.”
She knows exactly what I mean. It’s not so much the act itself as it was the insult. The risk. The fact that she made me imagine a world where she let herself get hurt.
“Hi, honey, I’m home,” she says, voice thin with bravado and breathlessness.
Shiloh laughs quietly. Ever’s arm tightens around her.
I step closer and put my hand around her throat. Just there, over her warm skin and jumping pulse.
Her breath catches instantly. Her eyes flash to mine, and behind the attitude I see everything she doesn’t want me to. Her nipples are hard and flushed witharousal beneath that dress. Her thighs shift once, instinctive and helpless, friction seeking friction. Her lips part around a smaller breath this time.
I notice everything.
“You walked into a room full of predators,” I say, thumb brushing once over the side of her neck. “Did you think they’d look at you and not want?”
Her throat works under my hand. She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t have to.
I know. She either didn’t think that far ahead, or she did and came anyway. Too busy chasing revenge to weigh the cost. Too stubborn to understand that losing her is not a price I will ever pay.
I slide my hand up and tip her chin back.
