“I get it. I fucking lived it.” He softened his voice, recalling his own pain and the celibacy that accompanied it. “Caroline was only fourteen when she died. As innocent as it sounds, I saved myself for her. Then Van happened. A fucking traumatizing way to lose your virginity. He and Liv forced me to perform sexual acts, but I didn’t willingly touch a woman for the first time until much later. Those were some dark years.”
“What changed?”
“I was so goddamn lonely that I went out one night and got laid. Just like that. I don’t even remember her face. Doesn’t matter. It was the intimacy that I needed. It pushed me out of the dark.” He met Cole’s eyes. “You’re making a regrettable mistake if you condemn yourself to loneliness for the rest of your life.”
Cole’s gaze slid toward the back bedroom and locked on something out of view.
Tomas couldn’t see around the corner, but he knew she was there. His neck stiffened. “Eavesdropping again, Rylee?”
“Leave Cole alone.” She shuffled into the room, looking ragged and filthy and breathtakingly gorgeous. “He’s not like you.”
Cole winged up an eyebrow.
Tomas tensed as she looked at the front door, scoped out the kitchen, and returned to the door. She reeked of desperation. To find food. To run for her life. Neither was an option until she spilled her secrets.
“Go take a shower.” He guzzled down the second beer.
“I want to hear what the psychologist has to say about our conversation.” Cole nodded at her. “Go ahead, Rylee.”
“I didn’t hear all of it.” She rubbed her arm where she’d removed the IV and stole another glance at the kitchen. “I’m hungry.”
Cole wasn’t on board with Tomas’ plan, but he didn’t twitch a muscle to interfere. At least, not yet. He simply observed her, waiting.
When no one spoke, she stepped farther into the room, positioning herself closer to the front door.
Would she run? Tomas counted on it. What he hadn’t expected was her blatant disregard of his presence. Surely, she felt him glaring at her, daring her to look at him.
After a moment of deliberation, she lowered her head.
“Everyone handles a broken heart differently.” Her shoulders twitched, her eyes shifty and tired. “Some people only love once, and if they lose that love, they never look for it again. They find other things in life that stir their passions. Like their work. Their hobbies. Or throwing themselves behind an important cause.” She peered at Cole through her lashes. “You don’t waste your time with hookups because you don’t do casual relationships. You had the real thing, and there’s no replacement. You’re a one and done kind of guy. But a word of warning, Cole. Fate might not be done with you.”
“I fucked fate to hell, darlin’.” Cole traced a finger along his bottom lip, his voice taking on a menacing edge. “Believe me. That train crashed and burned.”
“Okay, but if you’re wrong, if love comes for you again, it’s going to blindside you and knock you on your ass. You’ll deny it. You’ll fight it with every breath in your body. But having already experienced it once, you know it’s a fight you can’t win. So maybe, if and when it happens, give yourself a break. Don’t fight so hard.”
“Is that your professional opinion? Or personal experience?”
“Professional.” Her brows furrowed. “Or personal. Both, I guess.” She lifted her gaze, struggling in the effort to drag it across the room, pushing it toward Tomas, and finally, finally, she met his eyes. “You told him my husband cheated on me?”
He stared right back, giving her nothing, even as his blood flew through his veins. It wasn’t her words that affected him. It was everything she didn’t say.
Censure blazed in her glare, fury so hot he felt it flare against his chest. She abhorred him, scorned him, and found him severely lacking. Perhaps that was what struck him the most. Her burning disappointment.
As if she’d come here expecting to find something dramatically different. She must’ve read something into his emails that wasn’t there. Maybe she thought if a man was stupid enough to write the details of his criminal life to a dead girl, he was stupid enough to fall in line with her agenda.
Well, she could shove her disappointment up her ass, because he wasn’t that guy.
“Some people have more aggressive ways of dealing with a broken heart.” She addressed Cole, but her eyes were all for Tomas. “Like standing on the edge of a bridge and welcoming death. Or writing emails and pouring out their regrets. Or hate-fucking every willing body they come in contact with.”
Hate-fucking? That was what she thought he did? Or was she projecting her own issues? That would explain a lot.
“Are you having hate-sex with your neighbor?” He leaned forward, his posture rigid.
“God no.”
“How many have come before Evan Phillips?”
“Not nearly as many as you parade in and out of your bed.”
“Give me a number.”
“Rot in hell.”
“You know mine. In fact, you know every detail of my sexual history. I want yours.”
“I’m not giving you shit.” She backed toward the door, clumsy and nervous. She wouldn’t get far.
“You want to eat? Give me the names of your lovers. Timelines. Descriptions. You’re going to tell me who you’re fucking, everyone you’re connected with, and what they know about my friends and me.”
“This again?” She took another backward step. “You already know about Mason and Evan. You know my occupation and where I live. Whoever that Paul guy was, I don’t know him. He’s connected to you.”
“Then why was the tracker on your truck? Why was he watching you for six months?”
“I guess you should’ve asked him instead of dumping him in the desert with me. I told you everything I know about that, and I hope you figure it out. But I can’t help you.”
She reached for the door, but he was already moving.
“Don’t do this!” She fumbled with the handle, breathing heavily and whimpering in her struggle to escape.
He pressed a hand on the door above her head, forcing it shut. “Get in the shower. You stink.”
“No! I’m leaving!”
“Have it your way.” With little effort, he flung her small body over his shoulder and carried her toward the bathroom.
Her little fists bounced off his back, the rest of her bucking ineffectively as he crossed the short distance. As his gaze intersected Cole’s, they shared a look, but he didn’t know what it meant.
Disapproval? Indifference? Definitely not encouragement. It didn’t matter so long as the man didn’t interfere.
In the bathroom, he turned on the shower and dropped her beneath the cold spray, clothes and all.
She yelped and clawed at the shower curtain.
He caught it before she tore it down and shoved her back into the tub. “Do that again, and you’ll be showering with no privacy.”
“Fuck you.” She spluttered in the downpour of water, slipped on her socked feet, and scrambled up again, pressing her back against the shower wall.
Wet cotton and denim clung to her stunning figure. Strings of dark hair stuck to her face, and her silver eyes glinted with ferocity, sharp as honed steel and enthralling beyond reason.