Page 169 of The Sweetest Devotion

All I could do was breathe and that was hard enough.

Behind me, I heard the garage door lift back up. I kept my vision out at the woods before me. I wasn’t strong enough to see him like that, knowing that I had ruined his life.

“Time to go, princess,” Vino said as he came closer.

Go? Where was there to go? I would rather Cain shoot me too than go back there.

“Don’t touch her.”

That voice. That timbre.

I whirled around and stumbled back.

Keith was still alive.

He was coming to me and before I knew it, he’d taken me into his arms and pulled me to my feet.

He wasn’t bleeding and there didn’t seem to be a wound. I didn’t understand. “I heard a gunshot!”

Cain came past us. “Target practice.”

Keith held me close and tight, ushering me behind his back.

Cain wasn’t impressed. “I guess this is breaking up?”

What a sick little joke. A look closer and I could spot blood on his mouth. I hoped Keith got him good.

“Don’t talk to her,” Keith warned.

Cain rolled his eyes and peered straight at me. “This isn’t over. Tomorrow morning at nine, no sooner, no later, we’re going to have a chat with your father. Bring Keith.”

“O-Okay,” I stammered.

Keith stepped in front of me more, as if to keep Cain from seeing me for a second.

Impassive, Cain turned his attention to Beans and Vino. “Let’s go. I’m hungry.”

Together, the three of them got into the Phantom. It was idle for a second before it pulled away and rode off.

I only got to look at it for so long before everything got shaky.

Keith had a hold of me and was shaking me.

Roughly, he grabbed my face, hard and determined. “Don’t you ever do some stupid shit like that again!”

Anger and delirium poured from him as he shook me once more for good measure.

“Was I supposed to let you die?” I cried.

“I’d rather you than me!” he snapped at me. He held me to his chest, nearly crushing me. “I can’t lose you, Kenny. Fuck.”

He reeled back to get a good look at me. There were unshed tears in his eyes, and it broke my heart. I’d never seen a man cry. Not even my father when he’d gotten his diagnosis. “Why would you ever try to die for me?”

“Because I’m falling in love with you.” A world without me felt irrelevant, but a world without Keith? I couldn’t fathom the thought. I saw the good in him, and I couldn’t let Cain take that away. “I broke the rules when I decided to care about you. And I’m not sorry.”

“I love you too much to ever let you do that for me.” Some tears fell as Keith brought me back into his chest and squeezed. “Don’t ever do that again. You hear me?”

I nodded into the solid flesh of his chest and breathed in his scent, feeling safe, feeling at peace, feeling like I was home.