Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,55
rejected it. I did the opposite until all I had for Mom and Pops was rage. Because it was the only thing that would stop me from loving them.
I could do that now. Walk in the opposite direction of the old life.
The old me.
Another cornerstone crumbled. At this rate—there’d be no part of me I recognized left.
And maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Joan licked her lips and I followed her tongue with my eyes, thinking about how tenderly she had kissed Sarah. I thought about her driving all those hours with me in the backseat of her car. She must have been so scared. So tired. But she got me here.
Swallowed, if not her pride, then something to bring me to her aunt.
In my shitty life—outside of Dylan—no one had ever done so much for me.
God, her eyes were so fucking green.
“Thank you,” I told her. And I meant it.
Hard to say which one of us was more surprised.
“What are you going to do?” she whispered.
I dropped my hand and stepped back. “I’m going to take a shower.”
Part 2
Chapter 16
Joan
My instinct was screaming to get the hell out of the condo.
My garbage-bag luggage was packed at my feet and my ice-cold hand was on the doorknob, but somehow I couldn’t quite get my wrist to turn.
Pick up your shit and get gone. Only an idiot would stay. Don’t be an idiot.
I had Max’s phone—the only real connection to Lagan I needed. I was never going to be able to convince Max to help me. Never. I’d used every weapon in my arsenal and he’d been unmoved.
The shower thunked off, the old pipes in the building sending up a chorus.
Go. Go now.
But I didn’t.
Here’s the truth when you live a life like mine. I was not allowed the comfort of lying to myself. The delusions other people got to use to keep themselves warm during the long, cold nights—they were not available to me. I could lie to everyone else. But not to myself.
I stayed because this place was paid for. Because it was safe. Because it was comfortable. Because I had no place else to go.
And I stayed because Max was going to fuck me.
And I really, really wanted that.
See, no lies.
“Joan?” he said, and I could tell he was right behind me. In the hallway. I felt the damp, warm air from the bathroom, curling around my ankles. Banishing the cold air. Pushing it aside.
I exhaled slowly. “Yeah?”
“You leaving?” I heard his nearly silent footsteps on the carpet. I felt like all my frequencies were tuned to him. Everything was Max.
Slowly, I turned, trying to keep all my nerves from showing. All my fear. He had a towel around his waist, gripped at his hip in one hand.
Water dripped from the ends of his black hair onto the smooth skin of his shoulders, running across his tattoos and sleek muscles. He was lean and cut and deadly.
Still as a snake.
And all I could think about, looking at him, was his eyes on me as Sarah made me come. I felt all the words he’d said sown in my womb. In my gut. They were branded into my skin and I would never not be turned on by the memory. I had the sinking feeling that nothing would turn me on like that ever again.
He’d ruined me without ever touching me.
“I was thinking about it,” I said honestly.
“Coward?”
“Something like that.”
“How long have we got this condo?”
“Four more days.”
“Four days.” He looked around. The long blinds on the sliding glass door were open and he walked over in his towel to stand at the window. His back rippled with muscles. Every movement he made, I could see the mechanics under his skin. Muscle to muscle, ligament to tendon. Sleek, beautiful skin over all of it. I wanted to touch him. I wanted to trace his spine with my fingers. My tongue.
I wanted to pull that towel off his body and hold his ass in my hands while he pounded into me until nothing else mattered. Ever again.
“You ever go on vacation?” he asked.
I blinked, stunned out of my thoughts. “What?”
“Like as a kid. Everyone in the station wagon? That kind of shit?”
“No.” I laughed. Shitty truck with the door tied shut only made it to Madison.
“Yeah, me neither. We tried once. It was a disaster.” He turned, his thumb pointing over his shoulder toward the world outside the window. “There are grills down there, on the lawn by the pool.”