Page 88 of Full Throttle

He went to the huge fridge, grabbed a bottle of my favorite water, and then to the cabinet. I watched in silence as he filled a glass with ice and poured the water over it. And, just to torture me it seemed, he opened a drawer and plucked out a metal straw, dropping it in the water before handing it to me.

I preferred drinking out of straws. He knew that, too, along with everything else I’d thought he might’ve forgotten.

“Thank you,” I whispered, remembering the time he brought me a huge container of plastic straws to my room one night after I’d told him my mother wasn’t going to buy me any more. She’d said they were a waste of money and that I needed to stop being such a spoiled little brat.

“Why did you need to see me?” he asked, getting right to business as he stepped back, folding his arms over his bare chest, leaning against the counter by the stove. The light above him made shadows appear under his hard features, making him look menacing.

Clearing my throat, I looked away from him and took a sip of the water.

Cold.

Crisp.

Just right.

I felt my shoulders sag a bit.

“I just—I know I told you we needed to live our own lives,” I began, looking back at him, trying desperately to ignore his beauty. “When I found out, Cain, I was in a room full of people I barely knew. Finding out something about the man I’ve known since childhood, it…it—” I cut myself off, looking to my feet. “It hurt.”

“It was none of your business, Nik,” he said, his voice distant.

My head snapped up as I blurted. “It damn well should’ve been!”

His eyes flashed. “What?”

I set the glass of water down as the feelings I’d tried to bury came surging to the surface, all the pain I’d forced myself to forget and had to re-bury when I saw him in Denver for the first time with Oasis, the memories of us and what should’ve been if he hadn’t been so fucking stubborn. “You pushed me away,” I told him, my voice filled with pain. “You pushed me away and when I came to The Pit—”

“You should’ve never gone to that place,” he snapped, cutting me off. “That place wasn’t for a girl like you.”

“And it was for a boy like you?” I countered, raising my voice. He looked away from me, his jaw tight. I shook my head. “You pushed me away, and I want to know why.”

“We’re not doing this, Dominique,” he told me.

“So you’re back to Dominique now, huh?”

His arms dropped before he braced his hands beside his hips, gripping the edge of the counter as he glared at me. “So you find out something about me and you think it gives you the right to come to my house in the middle of the night, demanding answers? You wanted nothing to do with me. For fuck's sake, you had Mina come pick you up from the damn loft. You ran from me, Nik, not the other way around.”

His words struck true and, before I could stop them, words flew from my mouth, ones I’d never thought I’d say to him.

“Yes, and after spending years chasing you, I was ready to let you go! Then, I find out the fucking truth from the head of the Italian fucking Mafia. I had my theories as to why you kissed me like your life depended on it one minute and shattered my heart in the next, and because I was in love with—”

My eyes widened, and I looked away from him, bringing my shaking fingers to my mouth as regret washed over me.

“What did you just say to me?”

The question came out as a cold, dark whisper, like a ghost in the night, forever haunting me.

Fear had me by a blade to the throat, and I knew when I looked at him, my heart would shatter all over again. He was never supposed to know.

I was so stupid.

My fingers fell from my lips as I gathered one last ounce of courage, lifting my head.

Our gazes collided, and the world ran out of air.

I couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t think.

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