Page 13 of Ruin Me, Daddy

“You should get going. I’ll get you a ride to your hotel.”

She wanted the moment back. She wanted him to touch her, to hold her, to kiss her. She wanted all manner of things she had no fucking business wanting.

Was this how he’d felt for the course of their entire friendship? This yearning tinged with guilt because he’d known how wrong it was? Jesus. Feeling this tortured over her own desires for even a few months, sucked. She couldn’t imagine feeling this way for half her fucking life.

But that was a problem for another time. Tonight, she had a job to do, and she wasn’t leaving this club until she’d done it.

“We need to talk.”

“You keep saying that, but we don’t have anything to talk about, Sil.” He sounded so tired, which only added to the guilt hanging heavy around her neck. “Go back to California. I’ll come home after the auction.”

“I said I’d stay for the auction. Save the jet fuel.”

Something, anger maybe, flashed in his eyes, but his voice was flat when he spoke. “Just go, Amanda. There’s nothing for you here.”

After a decade with Ace Alvarez, the cruelest man she’d ever known, she should have been immune to harsh words. But Ice’s flat dismissal had tears stinging her eyes. She knew every inflection in his voice, and right now he was using his ‘This topic is closed for discussion’ tone. Pushing him now would only result in a fight she was fairly certain she would lose.

Time to fall back and regroup, so she could win the battle they were inevitably going to have.

“All right. I’ll go. But this isn’t over, Ice, not by a long shot.”

Neither spoke another word as she gathered her things and waited for her ride. Silence hung between them, thick with all the words they were both too cowardly to say to each other.

By some miracle, she made it all the way to her hotel room before the tears came.

Ice

Beckett

Where the hell are you, man? Answer your goddamn messages.

He barely glanced at the text before tossing his phone aside and turning his attention back to his guitar. It was a safer option than the open bottle of whiskey sitting on the kitchen island, silently beckoning him to come and drown his sorrows.

If he was going to drown, he was going to do it in music.

Not that it was helping much. Every time he closed his eyes for more than a second all he could see was Silver staring up at him, her big beautiful brown eyes full of a need so raw and naked it stole the very breath from his lungs.

So much for just needing some space so he could get over her. She was under his skin, burrowed so deep into every cell of his body he didn’t know how the fuck to get her out.

His phone buzzed again and he glanced down, rolling his eyes at Beckett’s name on the display. He could ignore it, like he had the series of texts he’d gotten over the course of the morning. But if Beckett had escalated to actual phone calls, he wasn’t going to accept silence for an answer. That much, Ice had learned from experience.

Reaching over, he hit the button to answer the call and put it on speaker. “You’re a pain in my ass, you know that?”

Beckett’s laughter came through the speakers loud and clear. “You’re not the first person to tell me that today, if you can believe it.”

“I can. What do you want?”

“I’m calling about your car’s extended warranty. What the fuck do you think I want?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you need help burying a body.”

“Please. I have people I can hire for that. Wouldn’t want to strain those million-dollar hands of yours with a shovel.”

“Asshole.”

“So I’m told.” Beckett’s laughter faded, and the silence from the other end of the phone grew heavy. “Seriously. How are you holding up?”

“I’m fine.”

---