First Love: A Superbundle Boxed Set of Seven New Adult Romances (166 page)

When my jeans stick to my hips, I can hear him trying to not laugh. I’m sticky with sweat from our romp between the sheets, and my clothes know it. Glaring won’t do any good, so I smile sweetly and try to sidle past him, but he doesn’t move.

“You don’t need to run from me, I’m not going to change my mind.” The determined set of his jaw frightens me, and I take a step back.

I’m not running! I’m not. “You don’t know that.” No one could blame him if he did. The last thing he needs is to be associated with me.

He shoves another crumb of knowledge toward me, flaunting it. “I know Nick dealt drugs out of his house—the house where you lived.”

The world stops turning, and I think my feet are going to fall out from beneath me. “Who told you that?” I demand, instantly guarded.

“I know the cops never seem to find anything, no matter how many times they go out there.” He’s nodding now, seeing confirmation in my words.

“That’s because someone on his payroll is on the police force, and they always warn him,” I scream. “Now do you understand? He’ll find me, and I can’t stop him and you can’t stop him, and no matter how far I run, it will never be enough. He has money, he has seriously bad friends, and I know his secret, I know who is protecting him, and they’ll kill me to keep it quiet.”

Arion moves toward me, trying to take me into his arms, but I push him away.
 

“Don’t you see, it doesn’t have to be your secret anymore. I know, and I don’t care, so you can stay.” He says it so simply, as if it fixes everything.
 

Maybe in his world it does but not in mine. “How did you know?” My voice rises to an all-new octave.

“I had a guy look into it, because I knew you weren’t ready to talk about it.” He shrugs, as nonchalantly as if he’s telling me today is Sunday.

He invaded my privacy? I glare at him, my chest heaving with bottled fury, trying not to explode. Behind Arion’s muscular, defined physique, I’m seeing Nick’s scrawny lies. Maybe they aren’t as different as I thought. “What the fuck, Arion? How could you do that?” More importantly, how can I ever trust him again?
 

“I didn’t have a choice.”
 

Arion reaches out again, trying once more to pull me into a hug, and it’s the spark that lights the fuse. My volcanic anger erupts, spewing pieces of shattered love and trust. Through the smoke, I see Arion with new eyes. I’ve had as much as I can take.
 
Maybe I
am
running, but so be it. Everyone has to be good at something, and apparently my area of expertise is falling for fucked-up guys and then running away. I might as well invest in Nike, because running is what I do.

I back away from him, avoiding the call of his arms and the ache in my chest. My heart is slamming into my ribs, and the pain of realizing just how wrong I’ve been about Arion is almost too much. I should have stuck to my first instinct when I got here and realized I didn’t really know him at all.

Arion expels an angry sigh, spreading his hands wide before him. “I had to know what we were up against so I could protect you.”
 

There is no ‘we.’
 

“Well, congratu-fucking-lations. Now you know, and you still can’t protect me. Did your source tell you that he made me deliver them for him, that I became a part of it?” I shove my secret in his face like a scorecard, expecting it to shock him, earning a point for me.
 

“Yes.”
 

Nothing seems to faze him, which only makes me more irate. The pity in his eyes is worse than the nonchalance, and I want to smack it off his face. My only weapons are my words and my righteous indignation. He shouldn’t have pried into my life. “Did they tell you that if he goes down, I go down? That there’s no stopping him?”

“No, because that’s simply not true.” He sounds like he’s trying to reason with a child that just won’t cooperate.

I feel a bit like a petulant child—a child who knows she’s going to be scolded for something big and who doesn’t want to be sent to her room. Anger is my armor, and this is a battle I’m starting to see I can’t win. Arion’s determined not to let me go, and the only way to change his mind is to shock him and make him realize why he doesn’t want me. The price of my freedom is to break my heart, and his, but I can’t be captive to anyone ever again. Not in jail, not to Nick, and not to the man I am trying so hard not to love. “Did they tell you I stole money from the cafe where I used to work, because it was my only way free—my only way out? That if I go back or if they find me, I’m probably going to jail?”

His eyes widen for a brief moment before the calm expression slips back in place.
 

Finally evoking a reaction gives me a small sense of satisfaction. I know he’ll never be able to trust me around his bar again, and he shouldn’t have in the first place, but at least something I said seemed to fucking matter.

“No, they didn’t tell me that, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything.”

“Dammit, Arion, it changes everything. You’ve changed everything! What do I have to say to get you to see that I’m no good for you, not right now? I’m a fucked-up mess, but you made me want to be better. Except now…”

“Now what?” Panic seizes his face, and I know he finally realizes just what he’s lost. Again.

“How can I trust you, knowing you had someone look into me?” Visions of Nick having me followed, checking my purse, accusing me of something every time I came home come to mind.
 

“I did it for us!” He sags against the door jam, looking as broken as I feel.

“Well you may have ruined us in the process! I can’t do this. Either take me to the farm or let me go, and I’ll figure something else out, but I’m done here.”

Thirty Three

Angel

We’re in his truck, and this time I’m grateful for the center console. It’s only a fraction of the space I need. But while I may not have space in my heart or my head, there is space all around us. We’ve left the city behind, and if I wasn’t drowning in misery, I’d be awestruck.

Everything but the road itself is green. Like, really, really green. The rolling hills, the towering trees that gather in abundance, even most of the road signs.

And the things that aren’t green are white or black. Endless wooden fences line pastures surrounding sprawling barns and winding driveways. Who knew that to find paradise, you only had to travel as far as Pennsylvania? I’m not even sure that I mind the rain anymore; it certainly matches my mood. Heavy drops fall from the leaves and branches creak around us, noticeable over the quiet hum of Arion’s radio.

He hasn’t said a word to me since we left his apartment. As soon as I said I was done, he quit fighting, and I think he may have quit me.

I can see all the bad choices I’ve made that have led me and Arion to this moment, but just like with Nick, I can’t see a way out. Even if I wanted to make a move toward Arion right now, I couldn’t, because Nick’s memories stubbornly drag me away.

I finally have no tears left, after crying all night—my first night at Nick’s as his live-in girlfriend. Instead of a romantic dinner and maybe our first time having sex, he crushed my phone, my computer, and my heart. At first, I thought he was going to break the door to his room down as he screamed for me to unlock it. Tears streaked my face as I lay there, trying to summon the courage to face him.

At last it grew quiet. Too quiet. I didn’t even have my sobs left for company, I was all cried out.

Now I’m up, looking for him or escape, I’m not really sure. I’ve convinced myself that my mind has warped last night into something it wasn’t, but I think I need some space. I can’t find my purse, which has my keys, so I’ll find him and ask if he moved them. I’m going to apologize and tell him I’m going to go to my mom’s for a few days while I sort everything out.

A large unattached garage behind the house has been converted into a workshop where Nick and some of his buddies work on cars. I’ve never been in there, because it sounded private when he talked about it. But I can’t find him in the house and his car is still out front, so that must be where he is.

The Tucson sun burns down from above, urging me back inside, but of course I don’t listen. The door to the workshop is closed and muffled voices drift out.

“Nick?” I raise my hand and knock.

There’s no answer, but the voices inside cease.
 

I tell myself I’m being silly; supposedly I live here now, I don’t need permission to go in.

When I turn the knob, I dissolve any chance I might have had to walk away. A square-built man in a TPD uniform jerks toward the doorway, all but foaming at the mouth as he snarls, “What’s she doing here, Nicky?”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about her.” Nick glares as he starts toward me.

I want to run, but my feet are heavy, glued in place by sticky terror.

“I’m not going down for your little girlfriend. If you want my protection, I’ve got to have assurances that we aren’t about to crash and burn together if the two of you have a little lovers’ spat. Maybe she’d be willing to talk.”
 

I’m not entirely sure if his last words are a question, a warning or both. I can’t quite tell, but I know I don’t like them and I don’t like him.

Nick’s arm slips around my waist, guiding me into the workshop. My eyes focus on the bag of powder in the cop’s hand then on the wad of cash Nick is slipping into his pocket. “Tell him, Tess. You love me, and you’d never rat us out, right?”

“Of course,” I stammer. “I didn’t see anything. I-I’ll just go back inside.” I try to turn, no longer caring about my purse or keys. I’ll run to the pay phone down the street and call my mom to come get me.

Nick’s fingers dig into me, and I yelp.

The cop is shaking his head. “She don’t look so sure.”

“Tell Officer Lopez that you aren’t going anywhere. That you know if you leave or betray us in anyway, you know we’ll be forced to eliminate the risk you present. Go on, Tess. Tell him like a good girl.”

I wonder how I ever thought Nick loved me as I nod my head. “I won’t tell. I’m not going anywhere.”

I keep my eyes turned out the window so Arion won’t see the tears pooled in my eyes. Is any guy ever what they seem? For a little while, I was starting to believe Arion and I could have something different, something real. But then the door opened and the truth stepped into the room.

Everything Arion has done is just another form of trying to keep me here. He’s as much my captor as Nick was, but at least Nick was honest about it. Arion went behind my back to find out my secrets so he could use the truth to keep me with him. I don’t know if it gets much lower than that.
 

It wasn’t long after I discovered what was really going on in the workshop that Nick said Officer Lopez still wasn’t satisfied, and they wanted me to start participating to make sure I was fully invested in keeping their secret. My job became to distribute some of the product they brought over from Mexico to a few customers who would approach me while I was working at the cafe. Nick didn’t deal in street-level sales; instead he was a midpoint between the cartels in Mexico and the dealers on the street.
 

My part was simple enough that I couldn’t screw it up, but involved enough to ensure I couldn’t feign innocence. Each week, Nick would give me a series of packets and a stack of fake mail to load the packets into. Then I took the mail to work, and his ‘brothers’ would show up, asking if any mail had been forwarded to Nick’s place for them. I’d hand it over, and they’d leave with an empty promise to update their address with the post office.

End of story and end of my innocence.

When I got fired from the cafe, I thought maybe it would be a blessing in disguise, but he just found new places for me to make my deliveries, and they were far worse than the cafe.

I risk a glance over at Arion. He’s staring straight ahead, and I desperately wish he could see that I’m trying to look ahead, too. To a better chance for us.

Thirty Four

Arion

She’s done.

Her words are on repeat through my mind, the chorus to the track of, “You fucked up.” But if she’s done, I have to be, too.

Every now and then I glance at her out of the corner of my eye, but she doesn’t move; she just keeps staring out the truck window. The roads are slick with rain, and I use the excuse that I need to pay attention to the road to try to convince myself to pretend she isn’t there. Because soon she won’t be. It’s time for me just to accept it.

She’s done.

Mud and rocks torment my tires as we slosh up the driveway of Chadwell Farm. The pastures lining both sides of the long drive are deserted; all the horses have been kept in out of the rain. If any of them slipped and broke a leg in the mud, it could set the farm back more money than most people make in a year.

Her silence screams at me as I turn off the truck in front of the sprawling two-story farmhouse. If she’s not going to talk to me, then so be it. I’m sure as hell not going to put myself out there just to have her toss my words back in my face. Despite what she thinks, I didn’t hire Kevin to check into her past to hurt her—I did it to spare her. I could see that talking about it hurt her, but without knowing what I was dealing with, I didn’t know how to protect her.

Might as well get this over. I open the door and surrender to the rain. She climbs out, keeping her head tucked to her chest, and follows me to the door. Her suitcase in my hand is a heavy reminder, and I just pray I can get out of here before I break down. A wraparound porch with wooden railings offers respite from the rain but not from my thoughts. The humidity is curling up her hair beneath her hood, and I have the momentary urge to push it back off her forehead and kiss her in a way that would leave her no doubt about how I feel. But I don’t, because I don’t think it’s a lack of her knowing how I feel—I think it may be the fact that she does. She’s running scared, not trusting herself or me, and if only she’d run to me instead of away from me, we’d be all right. But she’s not, and I can’t keep offering myself to a girl who is constantly running away from me.