Page 48 of The Enemy

“Did you follow him here?” I asked instead.

“He’s the whole reason I came.”

I’d never heard Neo sound so defeated. It was the sound of his voice that did it. When I reached for his hand, it didn’t mean I had forgiven him or that wasn’t angry. If this was indeed our thing and stolen moments in empty hallways were all we would get, I guess it was my turn to do the comforting.

I looked straight ahead, but I could feel him watching me. He held my hand back just as tightly as I was holding his. With his thumb, he began to draw circles on my skin.

“Your brother is an asshole, and I guess I owe you one.”

Something in my words resonated with him because it snapped him out of his little pity party. Neo stood straighter, and he let go of my hand. That made my stomach drop. How was it that I was already feeling the absence?

I was reeling from the loss that I had overlooked when he started to cage me against the wall. My breath hitched as he crowed over me. This feeling was familiar, but it was all new to my eyesight.

Neo’s chest was rising and falling rapidly. He put one hand next to my head, and with the other, he caressed my cheek with his knuckles.

“Are you fucking him?”

“That’s none of your business,” I bit out.

He let out a dark chuckle.

Neo stopped his soft ministrations and gripped my chin, then tilted it up so I would be forced to look into his brown eyes.

“It’s my business when I own everything in your apartment,” he spat. “I have half a mind to go burn your fucking sheets and throw your bed out the window.”

“You don’t have a key,” I couldn’t help but taunt.

He leaned even closer, and his nose brushed against mine.

“I don’t think I need one,” he smirked. “Do I, baby? Tell me, is that pretty pussy wet for me already?”

It was, and I hated that his crass words turned me on, but also how quickly I melted into him when he called me baby.

“Fuck you, Neo,” I said as I pushed him back. “I’m going back to my date.”

I tried to step away, but he pulled me back. His hand was on my body, holding on to my waist. His fingers dug into my skin.

“Don’t take him home, Lou.”

This time, his words wore more of a plea.

“Ditch your date.”

“I already did.” His words echoed softly as he walked away first.

FOURTEEN

NEO

Everything Lourdes was doing was drivingme fucking insane. One taste of her, and I wanted more. I needed more, but I couldn’t let that happen.

“Neo, are you listening to me?” my mother spat from the other side of my desk.

Since returning, I got my own office on the executive floor. I was one step away from Gerald naming me COO. Something my mother liked to bring up at every chance, and it was grating on my nerves.

Since the conversation with my brother, if it could even be called that, I’d come to face some harsh fucking truths. Two things could be true at once, and I was still trying to figure out the best way to proceed.

No wonder my mother never wanted me to confront my siblings. She knew secrets would come out, secrets I was too young to remember or even know about. Secrets that would destroy us.

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