Love Triangle Six Books of Torn Desire - Willow Winters Page 0,258

scared that I actually giggle.

“It’ll post the picture publicly. You don’t want to do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because then anyone who follows you will be able to see it.”

“Yeah, bad idea.” He stares down at his phone as he weighs the implications of that. He isn’t just some guy learning how to use some new social media platform. He’s Mark Ashton.

He picks up the concept quickly and sends a test Snap to me. It’s just a picture of his face next to me in the back of his Yukon, and I screenshot it—mostly to show him what happens if you screenshot a snap. Not at all because I want that picture saved to my own camera roll.

Right. Even I don’t believe the lies in my own head.

We play with Snapchat filters for a bit, laughing together as the urban development out the window turns into an endless desert and Mark sends me a snap of the two of us wearing flowers in our hair. I can’t help it. I screenshot that one, too.

I don’t even realize we’re already halfway home and we’ve gotten nowhere so far—well, with the exception of Mark having a Snapchat account and me feeling like myself around him instead of an obsessed fangirl.

“So why did you kidnap me for a five-hour ride back to Vegas?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I wanted a lesson in Snapchat.”

“Be serious.”

He looks uncomfortable for a beat. “I don’t know.”

“Why did you really come to Phoenix, Mark?”

“The heat.”

I roll my eyes.

“I can’t explain it. I needed to see you.”

“Why?”

He lifts a shoulder and shakes his head as if the whole idea perplexes him, too. “I’ve already told you, Reese. You’re different.”

“But how?”

“It’s this connection I have with you. I can talk to you. I can be honest with you.” He lowers his voice so the next part comes out all husky and sexy. “And the sex. Your kiss. Your skin. Your mouth on me.” He shakes his head.

“Is this just some game to you?” My voice starts rising as my blood boils with anger. How can he sit there and say these things to me when I know what I know? “See how many of Brian’s girlfriends you can fuck?”

He grimaces, and even with his features twisted, he’s still the most handsome man I’ve ever laid eyes on. “No,” he says through gritted teeth. “What happened with Kendra…it wasn’t intentional. I’ve paid my penance to make it up to him and I still feel like shit about it.” He fixes his eyes out the window. “I don’t go after Brian’s women. If anything, it’s the other way around. It’s not what you think.”

“Then what is it?” I’m yelling now, and I don’t even care. I’m pissed. How dare he come all the way to my parents’ damn house in Phoenix to antagonize me?

“I can’t stop thinking about that night. About you.” His voice is so full of sincerity that it’s hard not to buy what he’s selling. There’s a hitch in his breath, a change in his tone over his last two words: About you. His pain is palpable, but I’m too angry, too fired up to focus on it.

“And you think locking me in a car with you for five hours is going to change that?”

He barks out a laugh. “No, but it might help me sort through the shit storm in my head.”

“Brian told me you make women think you’re in for more than a night but it’s not really true.”

He winces at the mention of his brother’s name coming out of my mouth. “Brian doesn’t know jack shit about me.”

I raise an eyebrow and lower my voice. “He told me how you tell women you’re going to write songs about them.”

He blows out a breath. “I’ve never said that to a woman. Not once.”

“You said it to me.”

He shakes his head. “No I didn’t. Have I written songs about relationships? Of course. But I’ve never deliberately told a woman I’d write a song about her. I’ve never wanted to give a woman that sort of claim over something so close to my career. That night I was with you, I wrote down some words that spoke to me. I didn’t tell you I’d write a song about you.”

Heat creeps into my cheeks. “Oh. I…uh…”

He stares out the window. “I did, though.” He turns back to me. “Write a song about you, I mean. And I played a riff publicly and it was incredibly well received.”

“You played a riff publicly? Where?”

“I crashed a