Page 25 of Deadlier Obsessions

Stella rises from her seat and stares at him, with tears running down her face. “Well, it’s always been about Lucy, right,Maverick? She’s the only one that ever meant anything to you. Well, you know what. She can have you. Fuck you, Maverick. FUCK YOU!”

She storms off upstairs and I swear I see a trail of fire behind her. I’ve never seen Stella like this. Of course, she appears angry, but I don't think she is. She’s hurt. And pain causes people to lash out far worse than anger.

I glance over to Mav, shaking my head. “You’re an asshole.”

He gets up from the sofa. “Yeah, I know I am.”

Without a word, he heads to the bedroom where Stella went, trying to fix yet another fucking fire that he created.

STELLA

We ended up here under bizarre circumstances for sure. Had you asked me the day they took us, if I’d fall in love with my three psycho stalkers, the answer would be no. Because how the hell does that even happen? Call it Stockholm Syndrome, I suppose that probably fits, but I did fall for all three of them. And to find out I never meant anything to Maverick after all this time? Fuck, it hurts. Of course, there are different levels of pain. From ouch this hurts, I better get aBand-Aid,to, the blood is oozing out of me and I’m probably going to die. This feels like the latter. My heart is broken, and after my last boyfriend, I swore that’d never happen again. If you never give a man your heart, they can’t break it. That worked well until three psychos kidnapped us and made me feel things I vowed to never feel.

The door to the bedroom opens and I’m face to face with the heartbreaker himself, but he won’t hurt me again because I’ve built a fortress around my heart. And he’s not getting in.

“Get the fuck out, Mav,” I bite, “I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want to listen to you, and I sure as hell don’t want to look at you.”

His expression is pained before he quickly returns to his normal stoic one. “Stel, you’ve got to listen to me.”

I hold up my hand, telling him to stop. “Talk to the hand, because-”

Maverick smirks. “Baby, people don’t say that anymore.”

Placing my hands on my hips, I glare at him. “I’m a person, and I say it.”

Ignoring the fact that I said I don’t want to be near him, he steps further into the room, and I stand ready to attack, but when he gets close enough to touch me, I don’t, and I have no idea why. It’s the eyes, I think to myself, the ones that draw you into a near trance like state.

He drags his thumb down my cheek. “Baby, I didn’t mean to hurt you. My feelings for Lucy don’t diminish mine for you. Fuck, if it were legal, I’d want to marry both of you.”

I close my eyes tight. “Whatever I felt for you is done.”

Leaning in, his lips ghost over mine, and I can feel the wave of his breath brush over my skin. “You fucking beautiful liar.”

My eyes pop open and I arch an eyebrow at him silently.

He grins like he knows something I don’t. “The thing is, baby, you can’t turn your feelings off like that. You’ll never be over me, and I’ll never be over you. This isn’t temporary. Marriage or not, this is fucking forever.”

He wraps my hair around both his fists and tilts my head back. “I’m going to kiss you and you’re going to let me, because you want me as much as I want you.”

I try to shake my head, but his grip is too firm. “Cocky asshole.”

Mav takes full advantage of my open mouth and plunges his tongue inside my mouth aggressively. His tongue swirls aroundmine before he sucks on it, then moving to my neck, he licks and nips at my skin, making me moan. “Fuck, Stella, how could you even think I’d choose to live without you? Never tasting you again? That will never be an option.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

LUCY

It’s all my fault, isn’t it? Everything was fine before I insisted on this damn trip home, and was there really any point in it at all? All it did was prove that my parents will never approve of anything I do with my life.

Living in the United States with Stella, Mav, Gage, and Sebastian is the happiest I’ve ever been, so why did I let my parents get in my head like that?

After I threw myself at Mav, he nodded once at me and led me to the others and made his declaration, and I don’t know why he did that, because it’s not necessarily what I want at all. I don’t want to marry just one person, when I’m living so happily with four of them. Now I feel like I’ve sent us up a path we can’t turn and go back down to where we were happy and settled.

After Stella runs out, and Mav follows her, I nervously watch Gage and Sebastian as they watch me. None of us speak, because none of us really know what to say right now, or maybe there’s nothing left to say at all, because I destroyed everything, didn’t I?

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, not comfortable meeting their eyes any longer, because I can see the hurt in them, and I caused it. I did that to them, and I hate myself for it.

“Why, Lucy?” Sebastian speaks just as quietly, and although I know Gage probably wants to take over and yell, he doesn’t. He lets us talk, and that’s scarier than his normal behaviour, because does that mean he’s giving up on us?

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