Rush (34 page)

“Yeah,” she murmured. “I remember that
drawing you made.”

Ah, that was right. She’d asked me about
it after snooping around in my sketchbooks. The truth was, I’d been secretly
flattered she was interested enough in me to bother snooping. I stretched out
next to her on the bed and looked into her beautiful eyes.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I said. “Doesn’t
even bother me. It’s like it never happened.”

“Max.” She looked sad all of a sudden. “That
can’t be true. Nobody gets their ribs broken and then forgets about it.”

“Well, I didn’t say I’d forgotten.”

Her fingers found the mark again and
lingered there. “Who did this to you?”

For some reason, I couldn’t meet her
eyes so I looked down. I could see into the gap of her blouse and the utterly
hot view of her cleavage. She had a sprinkling of light-brown freckles across
the curves of her breasts and I wished I could kiss them instead of answering
her question.

“Max?”

I forced myself to swallow. Closed my
eyes. Bent my head to hers and kissed her hair.

“My dad,” I whispered.

“Oh, baby.” She put her arms around me
and drew me close to her.

It was strange. No-one had ever
comforted me over this before. I hadn’t told anyone what had happened. When my
dad had taken me to the emergency room, I’d said I tripped and fell down the
stairs. Even Brad and Marie didn’t know.

“I think I hate your dad right now,”
Caroline said.

“He was mad because I’d failed my
science class. He started hitting me and...he hits pretty hard. He had this
ring, too, a really big one.”

“Is it a signet ring with a huge letter “K”
on it?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve seen it. When I went up to Billings
for Thanksgiving.”

“I think it made his fist extra hard or
something. I know it tore up my skin. I think the emergency room people
suspected someone had beaten me up, but I wouldn’t say anything. I just kept
repeating that I’d fallen down the stairs.”

“Did he tell you to say that?”

Had he? “I’m not sure. I don’t remember
that part.”

“You know what?” Her arms clamped
fiercely around me. “I’m glad you ran away. I’m glad you got away from him. You
might have been killed if you’d stayed.”

“I know. I thought the same thing.”

“I don’t understand how he can not love
you. How can he love Trent and not you?”

I shook my head against her and forced
the words out through the vise that seemed to have clamped around my vocal
cords. “My mom died because of me.”

“What?” She pulled back, trying to look
into my face. “How could that be? You were only five.”

“I was playing in the front yard and I
ran out into the street. A car was coming. Mom ran after me, tried to grab me.
And the car hit her. She died later in the hospital, of internal injuries.”

“And he blamed you.”

“Yeah.” I rolled onto my back and stared
at the ceiling. “He blamed me. If I hadn’t run into the road—and I knew better;
I’d gotten in trouble for it before—she wouldn’t have died.”

“Max.” She propped herself on an elbow. “You
were five. You didn’t really know any better and how many five year olds have
good self control? It’s not your fault that your mom died.”

“I know that,” I said to the ceiling.

“I don’t think you do. I think you blame
yourself just like your dad does.”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t.”

She trailed her fingers over my bare
chest and belly. “Max, you blamed yourself for Carter. Did you ever stop to
wonder why your dad had a handgun in a house with three boys? Even with the
door to his office locked, it wasn’t safe. He must have had the bullets nearby.
If Trent could find the bullets and load the gun, you could have done it too.
Maybe even Carter could have done it. What was he thinking?”

“I don’t know,” I said in a low voice.

“And why was Trent so mean to you? Why
did he think it was okay to pick on you all the time? Did your dad set an
example for him?”

I turned my head to look at her. She
stared back at me with taut lips and troubled eyes. She was ready to go to
battle again for me. “Maybe he did. I’ve never thought of it that way before.”

“Because you were too busy blaming
yourself for stuff that wasn’t your fault at all.”

I sighed. “Baby, it was so long ago. I
want to let it rest. I want to forget it all. It’s been a long goddamn day.”

She brushed the hair from my eyes. “It
sure has.”

“I love you. I want you to move in with
me. I want to be with you all the time, forever.” The words fell from my mouth,
words I’d never spoken to any woman before, and they felt absolutely right.

She smiled at me, her face lighting up
as the tension evaporated. “I want that too. I love you, Max.”

I bent over her and captured her mouth
in a hot, wet merging of our bodies, and we fell into the sweet forgetfulness
of the two of us. Forever.

Don’t miss these exciting love stories
from Tori Minard

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thinks lost forever--his heart.  Although he believes himself unworthy of her,
Kayla loves the compassionate hero who lies beneath the ruinous violence of his
profession.

When the empress of vampires orders
Obsidian to murder Kayla, he refuses. With ruthless killers on their trail,
they flee west toward the only shelter for those who defy the Dark Empire…a
legendary stronghold which may be more fable than fact.

About
the author

Tori
Minard
wrote her first story in pencil, sans paragraph breaks and quotation marks, for
a third-grade class assignment. It was the dark and moving tale of a Halloween
pumpkin. Unfortunately, the details of this gem have been lost to time. Her
next story featured a large black dog who was really a demon in disguise.
Apparently, Tori was born in paranormal mode.

Three
years later, it dawned on her that she didn’t have to wait for the teacher’s
permission to write fiction. She spent the entirety of her peculiar adolescence
writing weird and romantic stories which embarrassed her parents and got her in
trouble at school. Unfortunately for her ego, the teachers merely thought she
was writing letters to friends.

Letters
to friends! C’mon, this is dark, creative proto-Goth girl. Why would she write
letters to friends when she could bring forth post-apocalyptic romances
instead?

After
a long detour for such grown-up pursuits as working boring full-time jobs
(State of Alaska, U.S. Postal Service), getting married and having a child, she
returned to her first love—storytelling. She was born and raised in Alaska, and
now lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, son, and micro-dog.  Her
novels include The Amaki series, about sexy fae, and a vampire romance series,
Legends Of A Dark Empire.

Discover
other titles by Tori Minard

Short
Stories:

Stainless
Steel Vampire
,
story number one in the Skye Donovan series

Love
Potion Number Ninety
,
Skye Donovan story number two

If
I Should Die;
a Legends Of The Dark Empire story

Price
of a Rose
,
a sexy fairy tale (novelette)

Amaki
Novels:

The
Heart Moon

Dragon
Moon

Blood
Moon

Legends
Of A Dark Empire Novels:

Temple
Of The Heart

Darkness
Awakened

Darkness
Forbidden

Darkness
Beloved

Darkness
Embraced

Connect
with Tori online

To
learn more about Tori, visit her blog at
http://www.toriminardwrites.wordpress.com

Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/toriminard.paranormalromance

Rush

Copyright 2013 ©
Tori Minard

This story is a work of fiction. All
names, characters, places and incidents are invented by the author or have been
used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any similarity to actual
persons or events is purely coincidental. All rights are reserved. No part of
this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior
written consent of the author.