Page 67 of Midnight Racers

Her head landed between my shoulder blades. “I can go and stay with Mum,” she whispered. “This is starting to affect your relationship with the guys.”

I should say yes, but I couldn’t find the strength to walk away. For the first time since I had been a child, my life was spiralling out of control and I didn’t know how to fix it.

Or even if I wanted to.

“Go get changed,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Flynn?”

“It’s okay. I’ll check the changes with the car while you get ready to head home.”

My way of dealing with emotions was to distance myself. I knew I was being an asshole, but right now, I was trying to prevent myself from exploding in a fit of rage and dragging the door off.

That rage was directed at myself because I had let my defences down and done what I swore I would never do. I had let Charlotte into my heart. As much as I wanted to claim that this was all about sex, the evidence was clear: Sex didn’t equate to sleeping in each other’s arms, it didn’t laugh at old comedy reruns, and it didn’t include sitting chatting over breakfast every morning. All those came under the heading of a relationship and I was officially fucked.

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Chapter Twenty-Two

Charlotte

Flynn had been quiet and brooding since that kiss at work earlier. He stood with his hip braced on my back door frame while Pixie played with her toys that she hadn’t seen in a week. My heart ached with trepidation, my stomach tied in knots, and my mind overanalysing everything.

I didn’t want to admit that I needed him in my life. This started as explosive chemistry between us, the sex a way to scratch that itch. When had it morphed into something more? I silently climbed my stairs to my bedroom. Everything still looked the same, yet, it all felt wrong.

Shit!

His reaction earlier told me loud and clear that he didn’t want this in his life. He was distancing himself from me, and I could feel the cold winds separating us. I sat at the side of my bed and stared at the floor, lost in my thoughts.

I didn’t know how long I had been sitting here, and I didn’t hear Flynn arriving, it was his boots appearing in my line of vision that alerted me to his presence. My gaze travelled up his long legs, over his hard abs encased in a black T-shirt, until I finally reached his eyes.

“You ready?” he asked.

The warm, funny, sensitive man who I’d come to know was gone and a distant stranger stood in his place.

“I think maybe I should just stay here,” I replied. “Pixie is happy here, and no one has come back in the past week. They were probably just burglars who got spooked.”

Flynn watched the CCTV they placed around my house every night to ensure there had been no other visitors. There had been nothing strange or startling, not even a change in the mailman attending my home.

“I need to move back home at some stage. The threat no longer exists, so this seems as good a time as any.” I was rambling, but it didn’t stop me from continuing. “You can bring the stuff I left at your house to work and I’ll pick it up.”

“Have you finished?” he asked.

I wiggled my nose since I was debating continuing my rambling.

“I have no idea what the fuck is going on, Charlotte,” Flynn snapped. “Pack your damn clothes and let’s get out of here.”

All the trauma of the past week starting with the dead men in my kitchen crept up to suffocate me. The kitchen floor was shiny and clean but I had been able to visualise their bodies lying there in a row waiting for the guys to come and put them into body bags.

I stood on shaky legs and stumbled out of the bedroom and into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. I opened the window to let fresh air in, sat on top of the closed toilet, and debated what the hell I was supposed to do. This morning, we’d sat in the sunshine eating breakfast and now it felt like a stranger was in my home.

“Charlotte.” Flynn rapped the door. “You okay in there?”

I chewed the corner of my lip and stared at the door.

“You know we have a limited time in case someone is watching, Charlotte.”

“I’m fine, Flynn,” I called out. “Head on home and I’ll talk to you in work.” All I wanted to do was take some painkillers for a migraine that was brewing and go lie down in a dark room.

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