Page 45 of Outbreak

In a flash, he’s up. Tears blur my vision as I watch him pace the floor. He can’t even look at me.

I startle when his fist smashes through the glass window, flinching as he pulls back his bloody fist and hits it again.

“Hey! Stop it!” I jump down from the desk and pull his arm back; he’s practically vibrating now.

Before I can speak again, my back hits the frosted glass door, his bloody hand gripping my throat. I can breathe, but the pressure makes my pulse skyrocket, beating wildly against his hold.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He growls, bringing his face down to mine, pinning me in place with his piercing green depths.

“They… threatened you?” I whisper as my tears run free, dripping onto his injured hand and mixing with his blood. “I was trying to protect you. I couldn’t lose you. But I did anyway. You left. Why did you believe him?”

“Rue. I—” He starts to explain, but I guess he doesn't have an answer. “I’m sorry. I should have?—”

“Yeah… you should have.” I push against him, and his grip loosens, slipping down my neck as I walk back to the desk. “But you didn’t. And nothing is going to change that. Besides, it doesn't matter now.”

“It fucking matters!” He yells, pushing off the door, eating up the distance between us in two long strides. Taking my face in his hands, he wipes my tears with bloody thumbs, his voice breaking when he whispers. “It matters.”

“Why? Nothing from before matters anymore. Everything we once knew—it’s fucking gone. I’ve spent the last three years trying to forget what happened—to forgetyou. And nothing we say or do will change what happened in the past. I saved my damn self. We’ve gotta survive today—now.”

“And did you?” His hands circle my waist, lifting me up to the desk and spreading my knees with his hips as he cages me in.

“Did I, what?” My voice is breathless as he lifts my chin and brings his darkening eyes to mine.

“Did you forget me, Death?”

CHAPTER 36

Ghost

“Itried…” She whispers softly. “But I couldn’t.”

Fuck knows I tried to forget her too. Losing her was the catalyst that led to me becoming Ghost.

“Losing you broke me, you know that?” I growl, slipping my hand around her head and gripping her hair tightly. My lips are dangerously close to hers. My heart somersaults in my chest.

“You broke me first.” The truth in her icy, cool eyes levels me. The anger and betrayal I’ve been holding on to was nothing more than a well-crafted lie, and that infuriates me more.

“He’s dead.” Now that I know the truth, I realize his death was too easy. I should have drawn it out more.

“Who?”

“My dad. We didn’t move away. I killed him and fled town.”

“Huh. Same.” Her eyes flash with a darkness I never noticed before.

“What?”

“Jimmy. After you left, things got worse. A lot worse. It was me or him, and I chose me.”You kidnapped a murderer.I thought she was bluffing. That really shouldn’t make me as feral as it does.

“That’s my good fucking girl,” I growl against her lips, so close to kissing her I’m going insane. “And I want to hear all the details later. Right now, if I don’t take you on this desk, I’m literally going to fucking die. I’m going to kiss you now—and you should know, I’ve never kissed anyone.”

“Why not?” She asks, her words ghosting over my lips like the brush of a feather, sending a delicious shiver racing down my spine.

“They weren't you.”

Like a predator descending on its prey, my lips devour her whimper, swallowing it whole and silencing any protest she might have. Though I don’t think protesting is on her mind. She clings to me like she can’t live without the lifesaving oxygen we’re exchanging as I taste her for the first time. Our tongues war for dominance—control. But that’s a battle she loses when my hand encases her throat and she submits to me so fucking deliciously. She tastes like chocolate and sin.

I’m so close to fucking snapping, like a man possessed. I need more. Gripping the nape of her neck, I pull away. “I need you to know—I love you. I have loved you since the first time I saw you in the alley. And I will spend the rest of whatever life we have left showing you just how much.”

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