Rock Me Deeper (Licks of Leather #5) - Jenna Jacob Page 0,20

they patched me up, shot me full of morphine, then let the cops haul me to a holding cell in juvie hall.”

The tears spilling down Caris’s cheeks eviscerated me. Though I didn’t deserve her mercy, I prayed she’d spare me the gory details and stop.

“The public defender they assigned did nothing to try and get the charges reduced. He told me I should have made better choices,” she scoffed derisively. “Three weeks after we broke into that bastard’s house, the judge found me guilty and sentenced me to two years at the youth detention center in Fayetteville.”

Two years? Two fucking years?

My heart shattered. Shame and remorse thundered in my veins. I’d been a fool, an idiot to think she’d simply given up on me. I was the one who’d given up on her.

I’d spent hours that night, pacing our hideaway in the forest, convincing myself that Caris hadn’t returned because she couldn’t handle my affinity for playing Robin Hood. Pissed that she hadn’t come back to fight it out or even bothered to even say goodbye, I’d packed what little shit I owned in a trash bag, gathered up my wounded pride, and walked away.

How could she even look at speak to me after what I’d done to her?

Angrily swiping away her tears, Caris advanced wearing a furious sneer. “So, no. I didn’t not go back to the woods because I was mad at you. I couldn’t go back. You’d left me…left me to be beaten and cuffed and hauled away. Left me to rot in jail and pay the price for believing in you.”

And shattered her in the process. I could see it in her dark eyes, which only intensified the guilt pounding my system.

“I-I’m… Fuck. I’m so damn sor—”

“No.” Caris held up her hand and shook her head. “Apology not accepted, Syd. I might have been able to forgive you if you’d ever bothered to come home and check on me. But not now. Not ever.”

The subzero finality in her tone was a solid kick to the balls.

As Caris spun on her heel and started toward the suite, I grabbed her arm and hauled her to my chest. Narrowing my gaze, I delved deep into her angry eyes.

“Somehow, someway, I will make it up to you.”

After pinning me with an icy glare for a long second, Caris turned her attention to my hand still clasped around her arm. “Let me go, Syd. Now.”

I’d never forced a woman to do anything in my life. I wasn’t about to start now. Releasing her, I stepped back and raised my palms in surrender. Without looking back, Caris strode inside the suite and straight to her room.

Heart still shattering and mind racing a mile a minute, I scrubbed a hand through my hair and strolled inside.

Pausing at Caris’s room, I lifted my hand to knock on the door.

And do what? Offer another useless apology? Beg and grovel for forgiveness?

If I thought it would do any good, yeah, I would. But I knew better. I knew Caris. Dropping my hand, I made my way to the sitting room off the foyer, then plopped down on the couch and hung my head. Visuals of what she’d endured because of me spooled through my mind, like a horror movie that had no end.

I was the reason she’d endured such despicable torture.

I was the one who’d talked her into robbing the place.

I was the one who ran out on her, like a coward, and failed her in every way.

Guilt pressed in all around me, weighed heavier by her rejected tone when she reminded me that I’d never returned to Diamond City to check on her.

I hadn’t, because I couldn’t swallow my pride. Didn’t want to face the woman who’d tossed me to the curb and abandoned me like everyone else in my life. The sad reality that I’d abandoned her shredded me.

“For the love of fuck, how the hell am I going to fix this?” I muttered softly.

I didn’t have a clue. There weren’t enough flowers or chocolates on the planet to convince her to forgive my sins.

“Son of a—”

A loud knock at the door interrupted my worthless self-flagellation. I opened the door to find Burk, Darren, and an older man—who I assumed was a doctor, based on the black bag in his fist—standing outside the portal.

“Syd, this is Dr. Callahan,” Burk began. “Dr. Callahan, this is Syd Wilson. He and Caris are…friends.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” the doctor replied, extending his hand. “Burk and Darren filled