Page 26 of Saving Scarlett
In my line of work, I didn’t date, but I did scratch the itch when my hand wasn’t enough. Spending so much time with Scarlett made it clear that when we went our separate ways, I would have to find a stranger who wanted nothing more than I did from the encounter. The problem was, after spending so much time with the woman next to me, I didn’t know if a stranger would be enough. I wasn’t sure if any woman could ever fill the jagged, gaping hole Scarlett would leave inside me when she walked out of my life.
The scary part was that I hadn’t even kissed her yet. If I ever did, I knew my addiction to her would consume me. She would become everything to me, more than she already was, and I would destroy her. I hadn’t chosen the name Bane as my alias for no reason. I chose it because I was destructive. She was much too good for me. She’d been damaged enough. In my head, I knew all those things, but I was still drawn to her like a magnet. If she had been any other target, I would have killed her without remorse. I wouldn’t have left the state with her to keep her safe and thrown all the rules I’d lived by for years out of the window. It wasn’t something I would have done for anyone else aside from the two remaining members of my family.
So caught up in my own thoughts as I watched the fire flicker, I hadn’t even realized Scarlett was talking to me. Doing my best to clear my thoughts, I turned my eyes back to her. “I’m sorry. I zoned out for a minute.”
She smiled, holding another marshmallow in front of me. “I said yes. I do want to watch the video. I’m tired of crying over Joshua. Whatever he’s done to others and after what he’s done to me... people should know the truth. I should know the truth.
Although I nodded, the fact that I was still keeping the truth from her about her father hadn’t slipped my mind, and it made my stomach turn. It was another truth she deserved to know.
“You truly are one of the bravest people I know, Little Red. I just wanted you to know that.” The way the fire lit up her face made it impossible for me to look away. “No matter what happens with Joshua, you’ll be okay. I promise you that.”
Her gaze turned to the fire, then back to me. A tear trailed down her cheek, telling me that she was still afraid, even if she didn’t want to admit it.
Unable to help myself, which was becoming my excuse more and more, I leaned forward and wiped it away with my thumb. “What do I have to do to make you feel safe? Just tell m—“
“Stay with me,” she said, cutting my question off mid-sentence.
When the words left her lips without hesitation, everything I knew—everything I’d been telling myself—went up in flames, disintegrating like ash in the air just like the walls I’d built up around myself. Without my permission, she’d knocked them all down.
Sliding my fingers into her hair, I closed the distance between us and kissed her, and when she opened for me, kissing me back, I knew I was lost.
Chapter 24
The Survivor
No matter how wrong it was—wrong for so many reasons—when Bane kissed me, every part of me needed to kiss him back. Even though I was married, and even though he was a man of seriously questionable morals, the moment his lips touched mine, there was no doubt in my heart that it was right.
The kiss was gentle at first—hesitant almost—his lips skating across mine as his fingers held me where he wanted me. But I needed so much more at that moment. So, when he went to pull away from me, I slanted my mouth over his to deepen the kiss, threading my fingers into his hair and bringing him closer.
The taste of him against my tongue sent ripples of pleasure through my body, making the neglected space between my thighs come alive after having been silent for so long. I knew I couldn’t sleep with him. I couldn’t take it that far, but damn I wanted to. I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted Joshua.
Sliding his arm around my waist, he pulled me closer until I was sitting on his lap, his need to be closer clearly as strong as my own.
“We shouldn’t do this,” he said, the words like blasphemy as he spoke them against my lips. Even as he said them, however, his mouth moved across mine like he couldn’t stop either. A groan rumbled in his chest as he tasted me, the kiss turning more desperate.
“I know.”
With no desire to move away, the words were weightless, escaping my lips in breaths against his skin at the same moment I trailed kisses from his mouth to his neck. “Do you want to stop? “Even though I asked the question, I already knew the answer. Neither of us wanted to stop.
Cupping the back of my head, he pulled my face toward his, his lips crashing against mine in a kiss that was filled with the same desperate need boiling inside of me. When he pulled away, he held my face only inches from his, forcing me to look into his clear blue eyes. “What I want doesn’t matter, Little Red.”
My heart pounded it as I tried to catch my breath, terrified of what he would say next, knowing I wouldn’t be able to handle his rejection. He blew out a breath, leaning his forehead against mine. “When you’re ready to be with someone again—when your wounds have healed—you’ll find someone so much more worthy than I am.”
I could never have anticipated how much his words would crush my heart. Years of abuse had not prepared me for the pain in my chest when he ran his fingers down my cheek and then looked away from me, guilt twisting his features as he stared at the fire.
For a moment, I lingered on his lap, not able to find the words to adequately express how I felt. In my head, I knew he was right, but I couldn’t convince the rest of myself to move away from him. To the world, and even to himself, he was a villain. To me, however, he represented something so far removed from that. He’d sacrificed so much to save me when he had every reason not to. Not only had he saved me—a complete stranger who’d only crossed his path once in my bookstore—but he’d also placed a target on his own back by doing so. He’d been nothing but kind and generous to me. Even if he didn’t think he was good enough—even if the world didn’t think he was good enough—my heart disagreed.
Sliding my hand up his cheek, I tried to make him meet my gaze, but he resisted, a muscle clenching his jaw.
“Bane. Please just look at me. Let’s talk about this.”
With a slow shake of his head, he slid his arm around my waist and pulled me into a hug, kissing my forehead. The gesture sent an icy chill of rejection through my blood, and it took everything in me not to cry. All I wanted in life was to be free to make my own decisions, yet at that moment, I felt so fucking helpless. There was an open wound beneath my ribs, and I didn’t know how to fix it. In mere moments, we’d gone from kissing with a fiery passion like I’d never experienced before, to him refusing to even look at me. The dramatic shift turned my stomach.
Loosening his hold on me, he nudged me to stand when his phone began to vibrate in his pocket.
“We should go inside,” he said, pulling the device out without glancing at me, or at the screen. “That’s probably Phantom calling. We have a video to watch.”
When I rose from his lap and followed him inside, the pain and rejection was replaced by anxiety. Although he’d given me a good idea of what the recording was about, I didn’t know the exact details. All I really knew was that Phantom had dirt on Joshua, and that particular dirt would cause people to doubt his claims about me and would also put him at odds with powerful people who were not opposed to taking the law into their own hands. There was also a very good chance whatever Phantom broadcasted would lead to Joshua’s death, so I had to be okay with that. After all my husband had done to me, I was still not willing to pull the trigger myself, but after the claims he’d made about me on the news on top of everything else, I was becoming more and more comfortable with someone else doing it.