Page 4 of Ruined

I helplessly tossed my hands up in the air before letting them drop down to my lap with a loud smack. “Well, I don’t have anywhere else to go, Joey,” I bitterly reminded him. That horrible fucking place was all I had.

He smirked at me, melting my insides. “You do now, pretty girl.” He rolled to a stop at the end of the street and reached over, cupping my cheek in his hand. My heart flipped in my chest. “You have me, pretty girl.” My bottom lip trembled, tears burning in my eyes. His words were so sweet, and I was doing my best not to cling onto them, but it was so hard. He was giving me so much without asking for anything in return. Had anyone ever done that for me? “You’ll always have me.”

He glanced behind us at the house we had left behind. “Besides, with how tormented your eyes have looked all night, I have no doubt in my mind that you’d lose yourself inside of every drug you can find in that house, and I won’t let you do that to yourself.” A tear slid down my face.

I had actually planned on doing just that. How had he known?

He leaned forward and brushed his lips to my cheek, catching the tear before it could meet my own lips. “I’m going to teach you how to breathe again, Adelaide. Just give me time.”

“Did Helene know?” Tristan demanded, dragging me out of my head and out of that sweet memory I shared with Joey. The muscle in Tristan’s jaw was ticking with his outrage.

A smirk twisted my lips, my heart squeezing painfully in my chest. “She told me it was a fucking great idea,” I retorted, lying straight through my teeth, but he didn’t need to know that. Helene had thought Joey would be a good rebound guy for me, nothing more. She hadn’t expected nor wanted me to get in so deep with him and his club. “She hated you for doing that to me,” I told him, and that was the fucking truth. He had always loved his sister. I knew that much. They used to be two little peas in a pod. But something between them had broken when he turned his back on me.

And I planned to use that to hurt him as much as I could. I was a sadistic bitch, but he haddestroyedme.

His face fell the tiniest bit. “I know,” he said quietly. “I fucking remember.”

I shook my head and slid off of the bed. “I need to get back,” I told him, not wanting to continue with our conversation. What happened between us was done. It was over, and I had no urge to rehash old feelings, to reopen those wounds deep inside of me. It would do nothing but make me destructive. Self-destructive, at that.

“You’re not going anywhere, Adelaide,” Tristan informed me, using my full name.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Who the fuck are you to dictate my goddamn moves, Tristan?” I sneered. His features darkened, but I wasn’t afraid of him. I had faced worse—much worse. Chills slid down my spine at the mere thought of the hell I had recently endured. “I’m fucking grown. I’m no longer that naive little eighteen-year-old girl that begged you to stay and love her.” He flinched. “I have shit I need to do, and I can’t fucking do that if I’m here.”

Tristan glared at me, and he shook his head. “You’re here now, Adelaide. You’re done with Joey’s crew, got that?”

I picked up the closest thing to me, which happened to be a lamp, and threw it at him. He ducked, letting it crash against the wall and shatter into pieces as it fell to the floor. “I’m not fucking done any goddamn where, Tristan Groves!” I shouted at him, my chest heaving with rage. Who the fuck did he think he was?

He wasnotkeeping me from Joey. I would lose myself if I lost Joey.

Tristan made it clear three years ago how he felt about me. I turned to someone else, and that someone else actually cared about me and loved me in his own fucked up way.

Joey and I might clash heads, but he hadneverfucking abandoned me, not like Tristan had done.

Tristan stormed over to me, his eyes almost black as they swirled with rage. I swallowed hard, remembering the kind of rage Tristan kept under the tight composure that he always wore. I tilted my chin up in a dare despite my heart pounding hard in my chest. Tristan had never put his hands on me before, but I’d seen what he was capable of doing to other people, had seen the aftermath, and it had never been a pretty sight.

If he put his hands on me, he would quickly realize why I was Joey’s woman.

I was fucking dangerous—lethal. Joey had created a monster to make sure I continued breathing. He had given me apurpose.

Tristan gripped my chin, his fingers digging painfully into my skin. “Don’t youdaredo something like that again, understand?” he growled.

I let a smirk twist my lips. “Or what?” I taunted.

I squeaked in shock when he gripped a fistful of my hair and yanked my head back, covering my lips with his. In one quick step, he had me pushed against the wall, his hand sliding around to hold the back of my neck as his other hand tightly gripped my hip. I gasped, opening my lips under his demanding ones as my body surrendered to his. My nerve endings curled tightly, and desire swept through my core, leaving me throbbing and wet as his tongue slid along mine.

Fucking hell, I had forgotten what it was like being with Tristan. To be claimed and taken by him.

And I couldn’t resist kissing him back. All of those old, buried feelings rose inside of me sharp and fast, and I gripped his cut in my fists, kissing him back just as hungrily.

The shrill ringing of my phone jerked me out of the moment, and with a gasp, I shoved him back from me, my eyes widening in horror.

What in thehellhad I been thinking. Fuck, what had I beendoing?

Tristan cursed, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. “What the fuck is that noise?” he heatedly demanded.

“My phone,” I grumbled, moving toward the sound only to find it on the floor beside the bed.

Jessie.

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