He angled his head with a rumble of low, seductive laughter. “I’ve been asking that question myself.”
“Did you figure it out yet?” The words came out a breath.
The slowest grin pulled across his sexy mouth. “Starting to get an idea.” He reached up and fiddled with a lock of my black hair, eyeing me as he did, the world unsettled and vibrating around us. “How about you, gorgeous? You don’t strike me as the type who begged someone to get through that door. Don’t seem like you belong in a place like this.”
Defensiveness blustered through my being. “And what kind of place is that?”
He laughed a scornful sound. “Don’t tell me you don’t feel it. The greed and the gluttony running rampant downstairs. Every prick showing off what he’s got. Desperate for more. To elevate himself. Not caring who the fuck he tramples to get himself there. Money and fame fucks with your head. Or maybe they were all already fucked, and that’s what got them here in the first place.”
“And you and I somehow don’t count?” It was disbelief. Maybe disappointment. Because I was so not about lumping people into a group and labeling them.
“Didn’t say that,” he grated.
My family’s faces flashed through my mind. The rest of the band and their wives and their children. All these amazing people who had knitted themselves so intricately into my life that they’d become a permanent part of me.
Family.
“Not everyone is looking for an opportunity to take advantage of someone else. Not everyone here is bad.”
“Maybe not.” Brown eyes glimmered in the rays of murky, shimmering light. “But you sure seem to keep running into the worst of them.”
It was a warning. One I heard loud and clear. This man was lumping himself into his own pile.
Bad.
Vile.
Destructive.
But it was the bare warmth hiding in the pools of his eyes that kept me pressing.
This man nothing but a raging contradiction.
Emphasis on the raging.
Energy came off him like a storm held in the horizon. Dark and ominous.
And there I was, itching to disappear into it so I could discover why it was.
“I think you’re wrong. I bet I could ask you to hunt down the guy who got handsy with me and you’d do it without blinking. I bet you wouldn’t even care or consider the consequences.”
“I was right,” he said with a coarse chuckle, eyes skating my face.
Confusion pulled a frown to my brow. “About what?”
He was back to fiddling with that strand of my hair.
Winding me up.
“That you don’t belong here. You came running in here just as lost as me. Except you don’t have the first clue when you’re running straight for danger. You don’t make people earn your trust—you trust first and regret it later. You dig around to find the good when there is no good to be found. Sound about right?”
Air wheezed into my lungs, the room spinning with the blunt force of his words.
“Wow. You’re kind of an asshole.”
He laughed. A low roll of scorn. “You say it like I’m not already fully aware of who I am.”
It felt like he’d called me out on my every deficiency. Accused me of being weak for the sake of being kind.
But the truth was, I was begging him to give me a reason to trust. Praying that this seed of bitterness wouldn’t take hold and invade every element of my life. I didn’t want the last grains of hope I was holding to bleed through my fingers.
Gone forever.
And the scariest part was I could feel it slipping away.
On top of that, I was left asking the question—why him? Why was I always drawn to what would clearly hurt me?
He edged in so close that our noses brushed, the scent of him invading my senses.
Clove and whiskey. Warmth and sex.
Dizziness spun.
“So yeah, you want me to go after whatever prick messed with you?” he rumbled, head angled low. “Make him pay the hard way? You’re right. I’d do it in a heartbeat. Say the word, and it’s done. I’m really good at destroying whatever I come into contact with. Whatever I touch.”
He reached out and ran a fingertip down the side of my face.
Chills tumbled down my spine.
“Question is, is it gonna be him or is it gonna be you?”
Three
Leif
Do you believe in fate?
In destiny?
In that fairytale bullshit that everything happens for a reason?
Living each day thinkin’ every event, conversation, and person that passes through our lives has been set on that path long before we even know what direction we’re headed?
Carved in some proverbial stone eons before we were born?
All comin’ together for the greater good?
Fuck that.
If you asked me, our lives were nothing but a pile of rubble. Debris made up of the mistakes that we had made.
Every horrible choice another piece that carved and morphed us into something more and more appalling.
You disagree?
I had proof.
It was right there in the fact that I was going toe-to-toe with this girl who obviously came stumbling in here, nothing but a lost-fucking-soul desperate for reprieve.
Seeking sanctuary close to the clouds.
Way up close to the stars.
And she had the grave misfortune of running into me.
She blinked up at me with these intense, sable eyes. I didn’t know if it was the destitute belief shining in them or her fucking tight, sexy body that had gotten me hard the second I’d seen her fumble through the door.
Girl coming in here floating through these crazy-ass paintings that filled the room like some kind of gorgeous, fading vapor, wearing this whimsical white dress that had the power to leave me weak in the knees.
Wonder in her being and something sweetly seductive oozing from her soul.
I’d instantly wanted her.
To take her.
And I was really fuckin’ good at taking what wasn’t mine.
She’d let me. I knew that she would. Could feel her almost trembling with the kind of sorrow that could only be assuaged by letting go.
By completely getting lost.
But there was something about her that was stopping me.
She stared up at me, unsure, maybe disappointed.
“Is that what you want?” she demanded in that wispy voice. “To hurt me? I guess maybe I did stumble into the wrong room.” Her sweet brow curled in disgust, and her words whispered like regret through the dense air.
The chains that would forever bind me only cinched down tighter.
A warning.
Didn’t matter.
My arm was looping around her waist, tucking her close. Clearly, I wanted the pain.
Hers or mine, I didn’t know.
The bare skin of her back exposed by the drape in her dress scorched my arm.
It sent a shock of lust running rampant through my veins.
“Problem is all the things I’m wanting to do to you,” I murmured down at her. Straight up. Because I was betting this girl deserved the truth. “Pretty fuckin’ sure it would scar us both.”
Greed flash-fired.
A thunderbolt that struck in the middle of us.
Hot enough to torch this fucking ridiculous house. Leave it nothin’ but ash.