keep ducking into the loft to grab more of my shit each day is wearing thin,” he continues. “Codi’ll come to the loft, but hates it. The memories are too much for her, so we always leave soon after.”
His thoughts drift into a place of darkness. He’s placed the need to be away from his loft on Codi, but in truth, I know it’d haunt him too.
“As long as you keep the volume of your fucking down,” I concede to this request. “It’s disgusting.”
He offers nothing but a nod, the gesture full of appreciation.
“I’ll clean this in a bit.” He turns, walking backward out of the kitchen. “I’m gonna go tell Codi.”
I grimace. “I’m already regretting my decision,” I call after him.
Chapter Four
Rocco
Unknown: Open your front door.
I frown at the screen of my cell, body heaving with the air my lungs are attempting to catch.
I feel alive; body dripping, muscles aching, blood pumping through my veins readying my body to fight.
Rocco: Whatever you’re selling... I’m good
I wipe at the sweat on my face with a towel, watching three reply dots dance on my screen.
Unknown: I’d be happy to let your stitches stay in your face, grow an infection and give you septicemia, but Codi would give me grief, and drama isn’t my jam.
Camryn Rein is a pain in my ass.
Case in point, she just fucked with my workout.
More than that, it’s just her. Judgmental and angry eyes always watching me in scorn. It’s, at a minimum, annoying. At its worst and most common, it reinforces the hate I hold for myself. I can confirm, without an iota of doubt, I need little encouragement there.
It shames me to admit, and I’d never do it aloud, but Camryn Rein holds a power over me very few others do. Not that she’d know it, and I plan to keep it that way until I’m buried six feet under. But she does. It dangles in front of my face in a nightmare come to life.
I remember her pretty blue eyes watching me in pity as I begged her to save my aunt. The tenderness in the way she handled me—knowing it was all my fault—when she told me she couldn’t.
The way she blinked in sadness, watching my grief unabashedly. Accepting the broken version of who I was even after I’d threatened the life of her sister.
She saw me at the weakest point of my life and that simple fact spreads unease through me like poison ivy. My weakness is very real. Most would argue against that statement, but it’s true. It’s small. But it’s there, and it scares the living fuck out of me. My very reason to keep it buried. It’s the sliver of my soul I show to no one. Why would I? Weakness only offers your enemies a hand-drawn map of how to undermine you. It’s your defeat handed over on a silver platter. Everything that is most important to you offered like a gift you’ve tied neatly with the bow of your surrender.
I recall the way she gently cleaned the blood off Mira’s face in mourning. The care she took in doing so. I hated being grateful for her at that moment. I hated that she kept her cool as I fell down a tunnel of unimaginable grief.
Camryn Rein is the ultimate reminder of one of the worst moments of my life. And she’s now my greatest foe, whether she knows it or not.
Opening the door, I lean against it in silence, forcing my thoughts to wash away, refusing to let her see my inner turmoil.
Attitude oozes from her small frame; forced scowl, popped hip, not complete without a singular brow lifted in distaste.
Her eyes track my naked torso, skating along the divots of muscle still twitching from use. They widen as they duck down to the band of my gray sweats, her will strong enough to stop them from dropping to my crotch. My cock is thickening by the second, a direct result of the blood pumping through my veins from my workout and nothing to do with the snarky bitch standing at my door.
“You gonna let me in? Or are you gonna make me smell your sweaty ass for longer than necessary?”
Lies. That flash of want in her eyes enough to tell me that she may hate me, but she wouldn’t be averse to licking the sweat from my torso either.
I step from the door without speaking. She ain’t welcome, and it’s best she knows that from the