Page 125 of Psycho

But none of them seemed to be in charge.

So who started this operation?

Quietly, I went back out the same way I got in. I waited until I was back in my truck before I put in the call.

Kai—Dominic’s oldest son and a fucking genius when it came to technology—picked up on the third ring.

“Hey, Micah.”

“Hey, kid. I got a job for you.”

21

LAINEY

As he saidwhere he would be, he was parked outside when school let off.

I knew he had said he was coming to pick me up, but a part of me had believed that he wouldn't be here—perhaps club business got in the way, or he forgot, but he was right there.

The windows were tinted, so I didn’t know if he had noticed me or not. I might even have imagined it, but it felt like the heat of his gaze was directly on me.

I slowed down in my steps and tried to get my heart rate back to normal, and unable to keep looking at his truck, afraid he might notice me—notice my face—and read too much into it, I looked away.

I had been trying so hard not to show him my feelings and thoughts since he took me to his home.

I thought I was pretty good at it. After all, I had years of practice.

From an early age, I learned that the only way to survive living with Dad was to not let him see what I was thinking.

Not the resentment I had built inside of me, and not with the hopelessness I had felt weighing me down every time I had woken up in my room at the trailer.

Not let him see how much he could hurt me with his words.

But it felt almost impossible to do with Micah.

Every day that I spent in his arms was a day closer to the destruction of the wall around my heart. I could feel it shaking from the very foundation, and I didn’t know how to keep it up around him.

Not when Micah seemed to have come to battle, so fucking prepared to tear it down.

I tried to fight him.

Not very hard, but God help me, I had tried.

I tried not to feel anything but what I felt when Micah touched me.

I should have been shuddering in revulsion every time he made me come, not in ecstasy.

There were a lot of things that I should think, do, and feel, but what Ishoulddo was so much different from what I really wanted when it came to Micah.

I had never felt so conflicted in my life.

I looked off to the side of the student parking lot, just a small way away from where Micah was parked, when I suddenly felt someone watching me.

My eyes connected with Josh’s almost as soon as I had the thought.

He was standing underneath a huge oak tree with his friends.

They were talking and laughing loudly with each other, but Josh wasn’t paying them any attention.

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