Page 8 of Twisted Obsession
Her lips twisted with displeasure, but she kept them mashed together.
It was only with her silence that I finally raised my attention to the others clustered just feet away, watching in still silence, unsure of what to do. I didn’t blame them. I didn’t know what to do either.
“Ladies,” I decided with an inclination of my head.
“Darius,” Sasha murmured. “Good to see you out.”
“Does my father know you were … released?” Kas asked at the same time. “I thought you had a few more months.”
“I didn’t break out,” I muttered. “I’m sure Howard knows. They released me early.”
Kas eyeballed me, reminding me a lot of her father’s suspicious once-over when I explained that I would be taking the blame in Edmund’s place.
“I believe you,” she said at last, though she continued to stare me down in a very lawyer manner. “It’s not weird you being holed up here in this secluded, hidden fortress with no one privy to your location or status. We never had this talk. Welcome back.”
Kas and Sasha both exchanged glances, neither having much else to say as they shot me a wave and headed back out to the car. Lavena stayed, her fingers tight around my hand not still gripping my gun. Her big eyes watched me, searching and assessing my every move. I wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but I knew her silence wasn’t going to last.
“Are you staying?” she asked at last.
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her I was heading back. I already knew she would fight and argue, but there wasn’t much she could do to stop me. I was set on that. I was prepared to go toe-to-toe with her on the matter when a movement caught the corner of my eye, a barely visible shift that somehow dragged all the air from the room and replaced it with the familiar scent of honey, roses, and something I never could put a name to yet it had haunted me in my dreams. It had lingered on my skin in the morning, tangled in my sheets. She was there without ever being there, her moans a soft echo fading in my ear. I’d open my eyes, fingers already extended and curling over the edge of the one-man cot, subconsciously knowing it was impossible for her to be there yet still hoping.
Fuck.
“Go wash your face,” I told my sister, feeling the words stick to my throat and having to force them out.
“But—”
I nudged her in no real direction. “Go. We’ll talk later.”
She shot me a scowl but marched out into the open doorway after her friends, leaving me alone with the one person on earth I wasn’t ready to face. The one person I was going to destroy before the weekend was over. Her there was all the more reason I needed to leave.
Now.
“Darius.”
Fuck!
The quiet hurry of her sneakers as she moved towards me sent all the alarm bells screaming. My mind and body dismantled at the seams, useless fucking pieces of shit abandoning me when I already didn’t know what to do.
I abandoned my gun to the floor with a deafening crack and I raised my hands, and I caught her.
No.
It wasn’t in my arms because I was a fucking coward. It wasn’t in my chest where she belonged. I closed my useless, trembling fingers into the soft skin of her arms, and I stopped her before she shattered what was left of my resolve.
I kept her away.
I kept her at arm’s length as if she were a bomb ready to blow up my whole fucking world.
“You’re home,” she croaked, delicate fingers reaching for me. “I can’t believe…”
She had no idea how wrong she was. This wasn’t home. The Alexander wasn’t home. Home was an unattainable dream I’d given up on the moment my cell door clanged shut behind me.
“Kami.” Her name hitched out of me in slivers of broken glass. “Stop.”
Eyes the exact shade of the Sahara Desert tore into my soul, wet with tears and raw … raw with pain and confusion. She stared up at me, begging for answers I couldn’t give.
“What—?”