Page 18 of Sweet Girl

It’s hot as fuck.

“You should see your face right now,” she laughs while relaxing further into her Adirondack chair. “You think I was lying, punk?”

Punk. God, I love how that sounds coming from her lips. Lips that are currently curled around the joint while she sucks in the smoke. Just as my cock had calmed down, he’s perked right the fuck back up. She passes it back to me and I take a puff, holding it in my lungs and enjoying the little burn it gives as the high starts to wash over me.

“You always wanted to work on cars?”

“Yeah. They were the only thing that made sense to me. There are too many variables in everything else. I like the quiet work, the math, that everything goes together perfectly unless it’s fucked-up. In that case, I love figuring out what’s wrong and fixing it. Cars make sense.”

She listens to every word, and I find myself easily opening up to her. Something I don’t do, not even with Dom and Aidan. What is it about this woman that pulls the long-buried parts of me to the surface?

We talk about life, how the boys and I met and got close, living in a small town, and how she grew up with two overbearing, demanding parents who always made her feel like she wasn’t good enough.

Her face falls slightly, and she shifts uncomfortably, I don’t push but I know something is on the horizon.

“You ever have this buildup of emotion, and it gets to this level that causes you to feel like you’re about to erupt? But there’s no eruption. No place to channel all that emotion?”

I answer honestly. Because that’s exactly how I ended up burning my parents alive in the hell they called a house.

“Yes.”

Her head turns to me, eyes facing down, nodding in collective understanding.

“I used to get so overwhelmed. And that’s not even the right word for it. More like, consumed? Like, I had to get whatever it was out before it ate me alive. I still feel it sometimes. The rapid buildup. Like a kettle about to blow.”

“I can relate to that more than you know. I think a lot of people can. Dom uses boxing as an outlet. Aidan runs.”

“What do you do?”

“Nothing anymore, baby. I’m dead inside.”

Her face falls, her lips, tinted blue from the cold, turn down in a partial frown, and I find myself not liking it at all.

“I used to cut.”

I try not to react, but I can’t help it. I grip the armrests of the chair, my blunt fingernails digging into the wood. The idea of her being pushed to the limit and harming herself brings out a deep, feral response in me. I want to protect her. Save her. Erase all the painful shit from her past and carve out nothing but pleasure in her future.

“Where?” I grind out the words through clenched teeth.

“My forearms at first. Then the inside of my thighs. Those ones are much deeper than anywhere else.”

“They were easier to conceal,” I reply matter-of-factly.

Her eyes flick to me, making contact for the first time since the conversation started. I stand from my seat, walking the few steps to kneel down right in front of her. Pulling her arm out and holding it firmly in my hand, I push up the sweatshirt, finding the very faint scars crisscrossing and lining her forearm. I run my free hand over them, grazing her skin lightly. She sucks in a hard intake of air as the electricity jolts between us.

My words are barely a whisper, but there is no missing the seriousness of my tone when I say them. “The only release you should ever need from now on is from pleasure. But, if you ever need the pain, I want you to come to me.”

“Cruz . . .” she says on a rough breath.

“Promise me, angel.”

“I promise.”

CHAPTER11

dom

I feelAidan enter the gym before I see him, his rage and frustration palpable. I knew that he would be the one who struggled with waiting to claim Emma. Cruz likes the cat and mouse game and would probably edge and torture them both for a lifetime, the crazy motherfucker.

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