Ripped (Real Book 5)
Ripped: Chapter 11

Pandora

The band makes it to a rodeo bar in west Texas. Olivia, Tit, and the other female dancers are flirting with a group of cowboys, and they haven’t so much as glanced in my direction, which leaves me in the guy section—where the Vikings are treating me like some long-lost sister. The only good thing about this is that my new official, and very first, fuck buddy seems to be a little jealous at my side.

“Hands,” he growls when Lex sets his hand on my knee while flexing the length of his arm and showing off his snake tattoo.

“Fuck, you’re kidding, right?” he asks, his eyebrows drawing low over his violet eyes.

“It look like I’m kidding?” Mackenna answers with deceptive softness as he slides his hand proprietarily under my hair to lightly caress the back of my neck.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I scoff, but I’m secretly delighting in this development as I squirm to get free from his hold.

Nobody has ever—ever—made me feel as wanted, protected, and, well . . . annoyed as Mackenna.

But I’m just rolling with it because, well, tonight I feel more of the former than the latter. Maybe because of all the orgasms? He has that ability to relax me with a couple of those . . .

“Hands, Lex,” he growls again, gently squeezing my nape, and I don’t know what it is about his bossiness today, but does he not remember that all there is between us now is sex? He sounds like he sounds in bed.

But he also sounds jealous. He hasn’t got it through that hard skull of his that I don’t mind Lex’s hand on my thigh. It doesn’t give me head-to-toe shivers like Mackenna’s hand on the back of my neck. Right now, in fact, the hand on the back of my neck makes me feel so warm, my bloodstream feels like fire through my veins. Every cell in my body, every pore, is buzzing at the touch, awakened by the way his thumb ring runs up to stroke behind my ear. What do I do with myself when he has such an effect?

Do him again tonight?

Do him until you’ve had so much of him you’ll never want him again?

“Dude, I get it.” Lex finally pulls his hand away and sets his arm out on the table to allow me a full view of the snake curling around his wrist and up his muscled arm.

“I was born the year of the Chinese snake. Symbol is always with me now,” he explains to me.

“Wow,” I say, and Jax, who sits across the booth, opens up his palm, and I can see a snake curling around his thumb too. I lean across the table to investigate while Mackenna’s hand slides down my spine and rests on my butt, where he gives it a little pat.

“So, you’re all into Chinese symbols?” I ask, very much aware of how Mackenna’s hand has slid up my butt to my waist, hooking into my waistband to sit me back down.

I shiver when he slips his fingers under my top, skin to skin, and I think now is a good moment to remind him that I don’t make out in public—and he’s making me want to do just that—but when I turn, the way he’s watching me, the way his silver eyes sear me . . . it makes my thoughts scatter.

“Danger,” that little voice keeps whispering in my head.

I’ve been kicking him out of my room every night, but only after we’ve fucked a couple of times. If he thinks he can use me, and my room, just to get away from the cameras, he’s wrong. If he thinks we’re cuddling after, he’s wrong. But when he leaves, shaking his head at me like it’s a mistake to send him away . . . then I lie alone in bed, not liking it one bit.

“Is your symbol Chinese too?” I ask him now, nodding toward his forearm and the inky, runelike symbols on his tan skin.

His tattoo niggles at my curiosity, and I’m determined to replace out what it means.

He smirks. “It’s Kenna-ish. It’s a whole other language. Some say it’s a religion.”

I roll my eyes and cup his wrist, pulling his arm to my lap for me to examine. “What is it? What does it mean?”

“Hell if anyone knows,” Lex says.

I brush my thumb over the symbols, and it’s only until about a minute of silence has passed that I realize Kenna is eerily still. When he speaks, his voice has deepened, as if my touch and the light way I brush my thumb over his tattoo are far more than a caress to him.

“Means I’m an unlucky bastard,” he leans to whisper in my ear, then, even closer, “Your hair smells of coconut.”

When he looks into my eyes as if expecting an explanation for this, I’m having trouble coming up with something saucy. “It’s the oil I moisturize my hair with, a little drop to any shampoo I use.”

I realize how close we are. One would say we look ready to do each other in public, as if we didn’t do each other several times last night. In fact, every night . . . for the past week.

He’s stroking my nape, and I’m stroking his tattoo, both of us staring, not with animosity, and not with lust. Okay, yes with lust. But also with a lot of curiosity. As though this getting to know each other again is proving far more interesting than either of us imagined.

I feel as though whatever is happening in the bar is secondary. I feel as though the world revolves around the impenetrable bubble of me and him. Nothing matters but his hand holding me by the neck, and his strong, muscled forearm under my palm and fingers.

He’s noticeably relaxed—I guess that happens when you have ten orgasms in two days—but I feel supermushy, and it’s very unlike me. It’s like I’ve been craving him, his contact, his affection, for so long, the intimacy of such a simple act is turning me to putty.

Worse is, he seems just as hungry for this. Edging his body closer, he suddenly presses a kiss into my hair, like he’s wild for coconut.

Gah. It’s one thing to fuck like we do, but this . . . oh god, he just groaned into my hair. He’s kissing the top of my ear and groaning like we’re doing something intensely sexual, rather than just sitting together. I hold back a sound as I feel his nose nuzzling my hair.

“Do you really want to know what that tattoo means?” he rasps, his breath shooting shivers from my ear to my shoes. He eases back, and his eyes feel like incoming bullets. “What will you tell me in exchange?”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to tell me something that’s been bugging me,” he says, scraping a hand over his head.

“What?”

Using his thumb, he angles my head up higher so our eyes hold. “Tell me what made you so mad at everyone.”

“I’m not mad at everyone, I’m just mad at you,” I say. It’s part lie and part truth. But he’s walking straight into the past, and something frozen has just dropped into the pit of my stomach, leaving my veins as cold as icicles.

“Yet the person you’re most mad at is yourself. Isn’t it?” He rubs his silver ring along the bottom of my lip, and I hold on to everything I want to say. Holding it tightly, in an airlocked and lidded box, because once it’s out, I can never take it back.

I can never take it back.

“Dora, come with us!” Tit calls, just in time to save me.

I expel a breath, then take Mackenna’s hand and slowly lower it. “You’re going to have to let me out of the booth, Mackenna.”

“Why? Little girls’ room chat session?” he asks with a cocky lilt. Because I’m so grateful he’s scooting out to let me pass, I grin.

“That’s right. No boys allowed,” I warn.

As I stand, he drops back down. “All right, Pink. Just know I’ll be waiting here to pick up right where we left off.”

“Don’t hold your breath, Wolf. I can replace out from the girls what your tattoo means.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” he says, laughing his it’s-so-sexy-it-should-be-illegal laugh.

“Hey, girls,” I greet as I join them.

That’s when my phone starts to ring and my heart stops when I see HER flashing on my phone screen.

My eyes widen. Glancing around for the quietest, most private space I can replace, I peer into the men’s restroom, replace it empty, and close the door, leaning against it so no guy can come in while I talk.

“Hello?” I answer.

God. I sound like a chicken shit. Like I’m guilty of something.

I’m guilty of lying and more. So much more.

“Pandora?”

“Mom. What’s up?”

“She misses you, she wanted to say hello.”

My eyes turn to the tiny window and a slice of moon outside. Hmm, looks high enough. “It’s past her bedtime.”

“I know, she couldn’t sleep because I’d promised she could talk to you today and I was caught up in a call, but we’re calling now.”

“Right,” I say, thinking, No, actually you’re letting her stay up late watching movies as an excuse to check up on me at this hour and make sure I’m not screwing up my life again.

“How are you?” she finally asks.

“Good, Mom,” I mumble, staring at the toes of my boots. They don’t look so badass anymore.

“You’re keeping busy with work? Staying smart about your choices?”

“Of course,” I lie, dragging the tip of my boot down a square tile.

“You know, it’s hard for me to give Magnolia the attention you’ve accustomed her to.”

“I’ll call more often.”

She sighs, clearly displeased but conceding. My stomach hurts. She’s the only one who knows exactly what I am and what I can do and how easily I get broken. I “gauge my value by her love,” according to Dr. Finley, the therapist who suggested I accept my mistakes, as well as the mistakes of the people in my past, and move forward.

I thought I did.

I thought I had.

Hell, I thought tomatoing Mackenna would be the last “fuck you” I had to say in terms of my past.

I was so, so wrong. Maybe I should consider saying something else instead.

“Are you all right? Where are you?” my mother presses.

“I’m in . . . Kentucky,” I lie.

“You’re decorating in Kentucky?”

I wonder if she’s onto me and worry my lip a little while I worry in my mind. “A bachelor’s apartment. I’m using my usual eclectic combination. Steel, dark woods. It kicks ass.”

“Language,” she chides, but she laughs a little.

We end up talking a little bit. She’s not perfect, my mom. But she’s the only one who knows how much I’ve screwed up and hasn’t hightailed it out of my life.

She never lets me forget that.

Then I get to talk to Magnolia.

“I miss you, Panny, I have forty-seven things now.”

“Wait, let me guess! We’re going to dress like gorillas and bang our chests out on the sidewalks?”

“No! But that will be forty-eight!”

I smile with happiness, but the guilt I usually feel when I’m happy slowly creeps in.

I’ve fucked up. And Mackenna’s right, I’m mad mostly at myself.

“You’re my hero, Pan,” she then says, her voice dreamy as if I really am something special.

“You’re mine,” I whisper. She squeals, sends me kisses, and we hang up.

I stare at my bracelet, then tuck my phone into my back pocket and breathe deep. When I finally get out, the girls are at the guys’ booth, Tit exactly in my spot.

I don’t like the rush of possessiveness I feel when I see her busy talking with Mackenna. I don’t like how possessive I feel of his eyes and his smile and the hand he has spread out casually over the back of the seat . . . where I had been sitting. I have a spectacular urge to go and tell Tit to take her hand off Mackenna’s shoulder and park her ass somewhere else. Shit. I’m so over my limits of normal involvement here, I shake my head at myself and head over to the bar. Best to stay away from him.

Dealing with my mother always leaves me raw, and I don’t want Mackenna to improve on that.

“See that guy?”

I turn to the low baritone to my right, and a guy—thirty-something-ish, with a black cowboy hat and a huge-ass belt buckle—tips his head in a certain direction. When I follow the aim, my eyes land on you-know-who. You-know-who’s silver-laser-beam is staring straight at me from across the room. “You’re asking me if I see him? Does anyone not see him?” I counter.

“He your man?” the cowboy asks.

“In my nightmares, sometimes.”

But Cowboy isn’t appeased. “He sure looks like he thinks he is,” he drawls.

“Ignore him. He thinks he’s many things. God is one of them.”

“Bitches with him agree.” He points to the girls trying to catch Mackenna’s attention at the booth, but nothing seems to make those eyes go away—not even the frown I send his way before I give him a first-class view of my backside as I turn around to order myself a drink.

Why not?

Safer to let the tequila put me to sleep later rather than Mackenna.

“You nervous? Whatcha got there?” the cowboy asks, peering down at my bracelet, which I hadn’t realized I’d been playing with.

“Something that always reminds me how human I am when I look at it,” I say, brushing his hand off. “Don’t touch it, nobody gets to touch it but me.”

He rubs a hand down my back and trails it lower. “I think you’re hot despite your lips. I like red better. So you’re possessive about your accessories, what about the rest of you?”

He squeezes my ass.

Alarm skids through me. “Hey, we were being morose at the bar. What the hell happened to being plain old morose at the damn bar?”

He grins. “See that other guy?” He nods in the direction of Leo as he watches us from next to a big black camera. “He offered compensation if we made the night interesting for your crowd.”

“Is that so?” Leo. Ohmigod. What a douche bag.

I remove Cowboy’s hand from my ass and consider slapping him and having Leo put that in his precious movie. Cowboy squeezes my ass again. I’m getting ready to knee him in the balls when I hear Lex’s voice call out in a friendly way, “Hey, bud, you don’t want to lose that hand, trust me.”

In the opposite of a friendly way, the cowboy is suddenly pinned back on the bar with a jolt that sends a couple glasses rattling.

“You touch her again, I’m ripping your guts out through your throat.” Mackenna pushes him back against the bar even harder.

“Kenna!” Jax grabs his arms and tries to stop him.

“Fucking let go,” Kenna growls as he yanks his arms free.

I look at Leo in disbelief. He was setting up Mackenna for a show. Their precious manager would let a mass murderer in here if it would get him buzz for his precious movie. Wow. I really don’t even know what I’m doing here anymore. What am I doing? Magnolia is alone with my mother, my mother is suspicious, Mackenna is in my head, he’s in my fucking bed. He’s getting into a bar fight because of me, as if he’s my . . . boyfriend still. Like all those years. Oh god.

I stalk across the bar, when a familiar hand with bracelets and silver rings catches me by the elbow.

“Hey, come here, look at me,” Mackenna says, and he pulls me to his side. As much as I don’t want to, I tremble at the instant release of feeling warm and safe with his arm around me as he leads me to some sort of storage room, where we replace peace and quiet.

“So,” he demands.

I scowl.

“What’s going on, baby?”

Seeing him visually checking me to see if I’m all right, I scowl harder.

“You planned to stay at the bar all night?” he asks.

“I was having fun, actually,” I bait.

“Oh yeah? That sure looked like fun for that motherfucker.” He cracks the knuckles of one hand, then the other, a violence I’ve never seen before roiling in his eyes. “Where did you run off to before?”

“I was calling home.”

He looks incredulous. “You call home in the middle of a bar?”

“Mother called me,” I mumble.

“And you can’t make her wait?”

“No, ’cause it makes it worse! It makes her suspicious, and she doesn’t know I’m here.”

“Of course not,” he agrees, his entire countenance hard.

“Stop questioning me, asshole, I’m not yours to command!” I push past him, and he stops me. I squirm in his hold, whining, “Let go.”

“You still dancing to any tune she sings?” he asks. “Are you?” he commands.

I don’t know if I can take the frustrated disappointment in his eyes.

“Do you crave her love so much you’d sacrifice your own dreams and everything you want to please her?” he continues.

I can’t answer.

“She’s not the only one willing and able to protect you from anything, Pandora. Anything!”

A door slams shut nearby, and Lionel walks in. A chill seems to spread. Mackenna’s eyebrows crease in contempt. “You’ve gone too far, Leo,” Mackenna whispers, a low threat.

“Kenna, relax. Where’s your sense of humor?”

A muscle flexes angrily in Mackenna’s jaw. “It’ll come back when I have my fist where I want it on your face.” Reaching out to me, he hooks a finger into the loops of my jeans and tugs me to his side. “I’m taking her back to the hotel. No cameras.”

“One camera. Just one,” Leo pleads.

“Fuck you, Leo.”

Mackenna pulls me angrily out of there, and I follow. One of the camera guys is stumbling behind us. “And fuck you too, Noah.” Mackenna flips the camera. The call with my mother reminds me of why Mackenna and I can never be.

I should tell him right now.

Stop this right now.

But knowing I have to stop it makes me want it all the more.

“I don’t need you to give some asshole a purple eye for me anymore,” I huff as he guides me outside.

“Great. Now you choose to be chatty,” he grumbles.

We slide into the hotel limo, and he looks at me as Noah climbs in next to him, camera and all. Silence settles in the car. Mackenna stares at Noah in quiet rage, then at me. I meet his gaze, because backing down is a sign of weakness and I can’t stand him to know he makes my knees weak.

His eyes flick to my lips. I can almost taste him. Each of the two hundred kisses he gave me in our teens, and the dozens he’s given me since I’ve been with him again. He kisses so well. I used to name his kisses. The sleepy kiss and the smiling kiss, the seductive kiss and the laughing kiss. Right now he looks like he wants to Kiss Me To Death. He looks concentrated like he’s kissing me in his head.

“Tell me something, Pandora,” he commands huskily. I know Mackenna, and what he’s really saying is “Distract me before I do something I’ll regret.”

On his thighs, his hands are clenched into fists, and I know he wants to make the car stop and jerk Noah and his camera out of here. He’s mad because he was being set up, and I somehow think he’s mad because they used me to get to him. He’s mad because they can get to him by using me.

“You’re a Herculean masterpiece with a penchant for trouble,” I say.

He’s not appeased. He leans over and grabs my face, then whispers, “Tell me something you mean, Pink. Say it. Nothing silly, nothing angry—something real. Can you do that? Or you only dress like a badass to hide the tenderness within?”

Strangely, my throat is starting to thicken.

He wants to open me up? To open the box in me and let all the bad stuff out?

He reaches out and cradles my face in his palm. I struggle to tame a shiver building at the base of my spine.

“Tender. Right. Pfft!”

“Come on,” he presses, leaning forward, elbows to knees, his face as persuasive as his music is.

I can’t answer that. I can’t even open my mouth while thinking of the answer, so I leap into the first subject that comes to mind. “I’m mad you pulled that guy away when I was so ready to smash my knee between his legs.”

“Seriously? You’d kick his nuts?” he asks with obvious delight.

“You think I wouldn’t bust his balls? That I only busted yours?”

“You don’t only bust mine . . . you lick them too.”

“I do not! Ohmigod, Noah, erase that!”

Noah grins and shakes his head behind the camera.

We’re laughing now. “Mackenna!”

“See the way she says my name right there, Noah? She sounds guilty, doesn’t she?”

“Mackenna, shut the hell up!” I reach out with my hand to shut his mouth, but he licks my palm and bites my finger gently and playfully. Then he twists his head and kisses me, hard. We moan as I allow myself this kiss. One second . . . two . . . three . . . then I push him and arch away. “Mackenna!”

“What, Pandora?”

We’re laughing, and even Noah is trying to stifle his own laugh.

“I don’t want to kiss you. Not here.”

“Don’t worry, I know where,” he says playfully.

My eyes widen when I realize he’s implying I want to kiss his cock, not his mouth. “MACKENNA!” I cry again, laughing hysterically.

When we get to the rooms, Noah’s still following us as Kenna keeps his arm around me. When I open the door to my room, Kenna tells him, “Night, dude. Bet you really want to be me right now, huh?” and shuts the door on Noah’s camera. He spins me around in the middle of the room, saying, “Come here now,” and I’m smiling, because his eyes are smiling at me too. But suddenly, his lips aren’t.

The atmosphere turns deadly serious, and the air begins to crackle with whatever it is that always—always—leaps between us.

I love that Kenna knows it’s hard for me to ask for what I need. Sometimes even I don’t understand why it’s so hard, but he does. I suddenly wonder if maybe he left all those years ago because I could never say I loved him.

What if I still love him?

He takes a breath and reaches up to stroke me, temple to chin. “You all right?” he asks seriously.

I nod. “I am now.” His eyes watch me as his fingers trail my skin. My body starts throbbing. Right now, there is no past. There’s just now. I want to climb onto him, or want for him to climb into me.

Without warning, he moves his mouth over mine, devouring the softness of my lips, his kiss sending new spirals of need swirling in my tummy. When we embrace and I make a soft whimper, he tears free, takes one ragged breath, and looks at my wet lips with those glimmering wolf eyes. My lips still burning from his kiss, he promptly recaptures my mouth, more demanding this time.

“Yeah,” he rasps. The touch holding me against his body is both firm and persuasive, and as his mouth becomes more commanding, my eager response makes him groan.

“Spend the night,” I whisper as I clutch his shoulders and sink my teeth into his lower lip, a lower lip I’ve been watching through the night. Before he can answer, I add, “Spend the night with me, you won’t regret it.”

“Finally the lady sees the advantages of having a strong, capable man by her side.” His voice is all satisfaction and teasing huskiness. He has no idea who I really am—scared, lonely, vulnerable, and full of regrets—as he lifts me up in his arms and carries me to the bed.

I swear he acts like I’m this big prize . . .

A part of me wants to tell him I’m a big empty prize with nothing inside.

But another part just aches for him to fill it and help me finally heal it.

The thought that I might be hurtling past the point of no return briefly crosses my mind. But only briefly, because his slow, drugging kisses are back on my mouth, my face, my neck, sending the real world spinning on its axis. The bed nearly swallows me as he sets me down and spreads out over me.

His hands work faster as he uses them to strip his beautiful body of his clothes and then strip me of mine, his erection thrilling me as he leans over to scrape his hands over every inch of me. Every hot touch tells me that tonight will be an act of raw possession. His possession. I usually take back as much as I give, but right now Kenna seems determined to take—and I am trembling.

He spreads out over me and I slide my arm up the coiled muscles of his back. I move my head to the source of his breath and whimper in the only way I know how to make him come kiss me. He does. He gyrates his hips and presses against my hip bone as though he needs the contact, making a soft, growling noise as he slips the strong, probing hand of his tattooed arm between my legs.

He pushes his finger inside.

I spread my legs wider apart and moan.

He sucks my lower lip into his mouth and releases a low, heady groan as he brushes another finger along my entry. I’m trembling with need as he ducks farther down and sucks first one breast, then the other as he continues fingering me. A fire burns in my tummy, and I squirm as my body begins tightening.

“Don’t let me come without you,” I moan.

“With or without me, you’re coming now.” He circles his thumb over my clit, and I remember him promising me, One day, you’ll beg. . . .

“Please. I like watching you come with me. Mackenna, please.”

He stops to look at me, both of us panting harder than ever.

“Say it again.”

“Come with me.”

“The please part.”

“Please, Mackenna,” I moan.

He growls, using his teeth to tear open a condom packet. Soon he’s armed and ready, and he’s pulled my legs around his hips, and with a thrust, a gasp, a groan, we’re moving together. His dancer’s body, muscles trained for strength and flexibility, moves over mine, cock filling me. Moans of ecstasy slip past my lips as I stroke my fingers up his back to cup the hard, clenching muscles of his ass. We replace our tempo and our breaths become ragged—our bodies moving like we’re extensions of each other.

As he kisses me again, mouth moving deftly over mine, my emotions whirl and skid, and the fire in my cunt spreads to my heart. My walls are down. I can’t stop them from tumbling. I’ll raise them when it’s over, I think to myself, but in this moment the smell, feel, and taste of this man consume me. This isn’t just a fuck.

And I know it.

As he pumps rhythmically into me, he seems about as lost in the shape and texture of my body as he does when he sings. The harsh look of ecstasy on his face unravels me, and when the involuntary tremors of orgasm begin, I arch to take more of him, surrendering completely as a hot, powerful climax rages through me, tearing my breath away.

I feel him come, and something just loosens in me as his body flexes in orgasm. A tenderness washes over me as I clutch his body tight to mine and whisper, “That’s right, come with me, Kenna.”

His groan is deep as he buries it in my mouth, and when we sag, he rolls us to spare me his weight as he kisses me, whispering into my mouth, “On a scale of one to ten, how’d that go for you?”

“A million.”

He laughs with me and squeezes me in his arms, and I swear his ego just went Shrek-sized. “You look like a conquering Napoleon, don’t you. You feel like you got it all right now,” I say, groaning tiredly.

“Nah. Napoleon was a little guy. I, on the other hand, am huge.”

“Your ego is huge.”

“Babe, my dick is just as huge as my ego, and they both enjoy being petted by you.”

His husky, cocky way of teasing makes me smile, but I hide my smile against his chest and just lie there, feeling happy and still dazed by our lovemaking. By the new feeling of peace between us. We’re still in bed, sweaty and silent, hands somehow still wandering aimlessly over each other, when there’s a knock on my door and a familiar voice calls, “Mackenna, open up.”

Mackenna groans as he stalks naked to open the door. “Not now, Leo.”

“Answer your phone, man.” Leo spares a glance toward the bed, where I’m clutching the sheet to my breasts. “You won’t be thrilled with it.”

He leaves as Mackenna grabs his phone and checks the messages. “My dad’s parole officer. Fuck.” He punches the number and starts pacing until someone apparently answers. “Hey. What’s up? So when was it that you last saw him? No, I haven’t heard.”

After a brief discussion, he hangs up. “Son of a bitch!” He falls to the bed and breathes deeply, dragging his hands down his face, then down the back of his head and all the way to his shoulders. “Dad’s skipped his last two parole sessions. They can’t replace him. He quit his job. Jesus!” He looks at me, shaking his head. “I send him money, you know. But my condition is that he works. Otherwise he’ll dick around with drugs again. Well, it seems like he is.”

Something’s squeezing my chest so hard, I have trouble getting any words past my throat.

“Kenna,” I say, reaching out to make contact with his back, his shoulder, anything. But suddenly he seems so tense and unapproachable, I stop before making contact and draw my hand back. “I’m really sorry.”

He shakes his head, over and over, lost to his thoughts. “If I’d known it was going to be this way, I would’ve just let him serve his sentence. I did the equivalent of slitting my wrists to get him out early, and this is what he makes of it. This is what he makes of his chance to do something good with his life.”

I’m so bad at this. Torn between the need to console him and the fear of how much I care about the haunted look on his face, I just watch him get dressed.

“He’ll be all right. Maybe he found a new girlfriend and lost time in her bed?” I suggest.

“Optimism? From you?” His lips curl softly, and he shakes his head. He leans over. “You really are a softie.”

“Am not.”

“I’m pudding too. At least, I am with you.” He walks to the door and leaves me with that. How can he fucking leave me with that?

Well, he does, and for the next half hour I text Brooke and Melanie in a group chat.

Me: Do you believe in second chances?

Mel: Absolutely.

Brooke: If Rem hadn’t given me a second chance I’d be fucked right now.

Mel: If I hadn’t given Grey a second chance and I hadn’t been spared my life, we’d be fucked now too and NOT in a good way.

Me: Ok. Just asking.

Brooke: Pan, why didn’t you tell me you had a thing with Crack Bikini’s Kenna Jones? Remington plays their “Used” song all the time before a fight starts!

Me: Cause I hate their songs, that’s why.

I’m lying, of course. I just hate one song. The one about me. Although a lot of them do talk about anger, being used, and being betrayed—as if I were the one who walked away and left him to pick up the pieces of his heart.

But if any of that hell was true for him too, what’s going on right now? Why are we getting tangled up in each other all over again?

He could fuck any of his fans, like Jax and Lex do after concerts. He could fuck any groupie, any one of his dancers. They clearly miss him in their beds.

But, like junkies, one taste of each other and we’re obsessed.

“Danger,” that little voice whispers.

Oh, shut up, brain! You’re too damn late.

I squeeze my eyes shut and replace myself adding his father’s name to my talisman bracelet.