The pulse-pounding fear I’d experienced when I’d woken that morning was absent when my heavy eyelids slid open to an unfamiliar room. But I knew I wasn’t alone. If a man silent as the night could no longer hide from me, the one watching me in that moment didn’t have a prayer of catching me unaware.
Besides, I’d been prepared for this.
Dark eyes were the last things I saw before everything went black and somehow, I’d known they would be waiting for me when I woke. Only now that I was awake, I didn’t know what to expect.
I’d been determined to have our lives go back to how they’d been—a silent, longing dance along an invisible wall. The memory of his mouth, the ache for another taste, it was all so dangerous in ways he couldn’t begin to imagine. For my sanity, for my frail resolve, for Dare’s life if Kieran ever found out . . .
But now it was all so much more complicated than seeing the man who had freed me with a kiss and pretending I wasn’t trying to resist a pull unlike anything I’d ever experienced—a pull I wasn’t sure I wanted to resist.
Because I’d been hiding from him at his sister’s apartment. I’d stabbed his friend. And now he was waiting for me.
I’d been raised in a world of rival mobs. In that life, shed blood came with retaliation. I hadn’t been so sheltered to think the rest of the world lived the same way, but even during the short time around Dare last night, I’d known—I’d sensed it. There was a lethal darkness about him that buzzed just beneath the surface. Behind that easy smirk, he was dangerous. It wasn’t hard to imagine his life might mirror my own in some ways. Ways that currently caused me worry because it was Johnny’s word against mine.
Taking a deep breath, I steeled my nerves and pushed up on my elbows.
My body ached everywhere. From Johnny’s hands, from the wall and towel rack, from the adrenaline crash . . . but every ache was abruptly forgotten, and I paused in my attempt to sit up when I found one of the twins and Einstein sitting on a couch to the left of the unfamiliar bed instead of Dare, talking in hushed tones.
The twin was watching Einstein intently, but she was eyeing me expectantly; her stare solemn.
“Maverick,” she murmured without looking at the twin.
After a few seconds, he let loose a sigh and reluctantly left the room.
“Hi,” I said once he was gone. The word was a rasp; the short syllable painful as it slid up my throat.
The corner of her lips tilted up. “Your mouth . . .”
“So you’ve said.”
What felt like minutes passed without either of us saying another word. I wanted to ask where I was. I wanted to ask where Libby and Dare were and why Einstein was the one in the room with me—why she wasn’t with Johnny.
But when I finally spoke, it wasn’t to ask any of the questions filling my mind. “I’m sorry.” When one of her eyebrows ticked up, I said, “I know Johnny is your boyfriend, or something like that, and—”
“And he should’ve never been in that bathroom with you,” she finished for me. “He told me he was going to get a drink. I didn’t know . . .” She took a shuddering breath. “I didn’t know he would see you. I was hoping he wouldn’t see you. He has problems with his anger, and when he doesn’t trust someone, he sees them as a threat to his friends.”
I started to nod but stopped when the movement hurt. “I had the window open. He saw it and . . .” I wavered, remembering the rage that had burned in his eyes. “I’m pretty sure he thought I snuck in here.”
“There,” she corrected.
“Excuse me?”
“We’re at a different house. Dare and Libby brought you here.”
I stilled, then slowly let my eyes touch on everything in the room as I pushed myself the rest of the way up. It was large and had masculine tones, but otherwise held nothing to hint at where I might be.
“Where is here?”
“Libby and Dare’s family home,” she responded coolly. “We all stay here from time to time.”
“I don’t . . . I don’t think I should be here.”
“Really?” she asked, sounding more curious than was necessary. “Why?”
A strained laugh forced from my chest. “Because your boyfriend tried to kill me. Because I stabbed him. Because I don’t know any of you and I just—I need to leave.”
Einstein watched me in silence as seconds slipped by. “A long time ago we tried to be there for my sister when she ran, but she was too proud to accept the help. Maybe a little afraid,” she added softly, a sad smile touching her face. “We can be a little intimidating. But she should’ve accepted the help.”
“Wait, what—?” I started when she rose from the couch, my bag in her hand.
“Dare told Johnny never to touch you again. If that wasn’t enough for him, Johnny knows why you’re here now, and he knows I’ll leave him if he goes near you,” she said as she dropped my bag onto the bed near my feet.
I studied her intense stare to see if there was anything there—anything that might let on she had gone through the bag and seen more than she should’ve—but there was nothing.
“I don’t understand anything you’re telling me,” I said when she began turning toward the door.
She stopped, her eyes dropping to my mouth before searching my face. “Libby told me about you before the guys showed up at the house. Was she right . . . are you running from someone? Hiding from them?”
I hesitated then nodded.
“And Dare . . . why him?”
I blinked slowly, trying to absorb her question. “I don’t—” Another breath of a laugh left me, the sound laced with my aggravation. “I don’t understand your questions or your rapid change of direction in this conversation.”
She didn’t respond, only continued to watch me as she waited for my response.
“There is no why Dare—I can’t even say I know who Dare is. I meet a friend at Brooks Street Café every week, so I see Dare there. But we’ve never spoken before last night, and I planned on never speaking to him again once I left. Then I ran into Libby at the bar, and she refused to let me leave without her. I thought I would be gone from your apartment before Dare ever knew I was there.”
Einstein not only seemed to accept that answer, but was relieved by it. “Then all you need to know is you’re safest here,” she said as she once again turned to leave.
“What—no. After what happened today, this is the last—I shouldn’t be here,” I reiterated, stumbling over my words.
She paused, but didn’t turn around. “I’ll never forget how paralyzing the grief was when Johnny found my sister’s body hours after she left us, because she’d been so determined to run from her ex. It’s something I live with, and will continue to. It’s a past that made me who I am now.” Looking over her shoulder, she held my stare and whispered, “She should’ve accepted our help. You’re safe here . . . trust me.”
I watched her go, stunned into silence, then dropped my head into my hands.
A moment from the night before flashed through my mind.
Libby’s hand squeezing and releasing my wrist. “If I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that girls need to be there for each other. Especially during the hard times.”
Her words and her worry for me now made sense, and my chest ached for a girl I didn’t know.
I couldn’t imagine Einstein’s grief because what happened to her sister was so different than my brothers, but in a way, I felt like I knew her better than any of the people I’d met last night.
But what I was going through . . . it was nothing like what her sister had.
Kieran would rather kill himself than hurt me. Beck and Conor would die for me. Aric had.
I was Mickey’s only source of ensuring the O’Sullivan blood in Holloway. He’d do anything to keep me safe—keep me hidden.
I needed to get home.
I needed to let them know I was okay.
I snatched my bag from the foot of bed as I climbed off it, and hurried out of the bedroom into an unfamiliar hall.
I rubbed a hand over my arm as electricity spread across my skin. I tensed, my breath catching just before he spoke.
“You planned on never speaking to me again, huh?”
I spun around, my heart rate taking off in a violent rhythm seeing him standing there, leaning against the wall with his arms folded over his chest. But the smile that had haunted my thoughts for years was nowhere to be seen now.
“It’s for the best,” I whispered, my words shaking from the chaos whirling inside me.
As always, every cell in my body was responding to his presence. How can the need to feel his touch . . . his lips . . . just to hear him speak again be nearly overwhelming?
He pushed away from the wall, his steps slow and calculated as he closed the distance between us. “Why is that, Firefly?”
Because you evoke feelings I’ve never experienced—never expected—and it doesn’t make sense.
“Because I can’t do this.” My admission was nothing more than a breath, but it felt heavy falling from my tongue.
I bit back a whimper when he reached me, the tips of his fingers finding my lower stomach to guide me back until I was pressed to the wall.
His forearms framed my head, leaving his lips and body close enough to tease me with the memory of his touch, but far enough to torment me with the space still between us.
Space I knew I needed so I wouldn’t lose my mind in his presence. Again.
“Can’t do what, exactly?”
I searched his hypnotic eyes, trying to remember what it was he was asking—what I’d said.
I sucked in a ragged breath and had to force my eyes not to shut when the movement pressed my breasts against his muscled chest.
This wasn’t sane.
Nothing could be this addictive. Nothing could be this consuming.
And yet, Dare was.
“I can’t be near you like this,” I finally managed to say, “for so many reasons . . .”
He dipped his head, his nose trailing down the side of mine until his lips were hovering just a breath above my own. “Funny,” he murmured, the word somewhere between a growl and a bite. “Because I don’t want you anywhere near me or my family.”
The air in my lungs rushed out when he suddenly shoved away from the wall, a scowl on his beautiful face.
“Get out,” he demanded between gritted teeth.
I blinked quickly, trying to gain my bearings. “What?”
He jerked his head toward the right. “Get out. Don’t come near my family again.”
I’d had every intention of leaving before Dare had stopped me. If I’d found my way out of the house before I’d seen him, I would’ve done exactly that.
I’d just said I couldn’t be near him like this . . . and I’d meant it. I had a life that was complicated enough without mixing in this man who left me feeling intoxicated and aching to be closer to him. But I’d also felt lost not knowing how I was supposed to be apart from him.
But I couldn’t comprehend what he was saying. Couldn’t register what he meant or the anger radiating from him and directed at me. Couldn’t look at him and see the same man who saved me with his words.
“You were supposed to be an easy fuck. You were supposed to be someone I ignored after last night—but I couldn’t even get you back to my place,” he said with an aggravated laugh. “All those people you met last night? They’re like family. And you somehow inserted yourself in the middle of them like you had a right to fucking be there, and created chaos.”
His words stole my already shallow breaths. They pierced at my chest . . . at the shattered parts of me he’d pieced back together.
“I didn’t . . . I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry for hurting Johnny,” I whispered, honesty dripping from my hollow words. “I’m so—”
“Walk away before I drag you out of the house.”
I jerked back, stunned by the hate in his tone. It was like listening to Johnny’s words coming from Dare’s mouth. It sounded wrong . . . felt wrong.
But then again, I didn’t know him.
Like he said, I wasn’t supposed to be here—I was never supposed to see him outside of Brooks Street. For all I knew, the Dare who’d lit my world on fire could’ve been an act . . . and the man in front of me was who he truly was.
I turned, but I wasn’t sure if I was hurrying away from him or barely moving. I was too stunned to know. Too stunned to hold my emotionless façade as I followed the hall into a larger room.
It took a few seconds to realize there were other people in there, and that I recognized most of the faces. I caught glimpses of an older woman glaring at something—or someone—behind me, Einstein’s worried expression, and Libby attempting to cover her shock with her hands, but I didn’t stop to acknowledge them.
I was too embarrassed knowing they’d most likely overheard everything. I was too humiliated. I was horrified that Dare’s words had hurt so much. And I was frustratingly aware he was somewhere close behind me because my body was begging to turn around, to acknowledge the current running along my skin and the reason behind it.
But he’d made himself clear, and I couldn’t handle being rejected so harshly again.
So I left.
I spent the better part of two hours wandering around, trying to find my way out of the strange neighborhoods and back to the main streets of our tiny town, Dare’s words playing in my mind the entire time.
“You were supposed to be an easy fuck.”
“Walk away before I drag you out . . .”
With each tormenting echo, the ache in my chest spread—grew heavy.
By the time I found a drugstore, tears filled my eyes, begging to fall. But I forced them away, refusing to show the pain from a man I should’ve never allowed into my heart.
After buying sunglasses and a hat, I went into the bathroom to say goodbye to Elle, then hid myself from the world as I went in search of a phone.