Page 88 of Our Lips Are Sealed
“Like I was hit by a truck.”
“You look like it.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Surging forward, he rolled her back onto the bed, trapping her under him. Relishing the feel of his weight resting on her, Evie hooked her arms around his neck.
“Tell me what happened.”
Anguish flickered in his whiskey brown eyes, the vulnerability in them breaking her heart. “I was going to kill him,” he exhaled with a whisper. “It was in me to do it.”
She lifted her head, rubbing her nose with his. “But you didn’t.”
“It felt like a war inside me. One side pushed for me to end him, screaming that it was my responsibility to put Toby down for what he’d done.”
Samuel swallowed thickly, the pain etched on his face lessening. “But the other side warned of what it meant to take a life. And I swear to God, it sounded like my mother lecturing me.”
The memory of Miranda peering over his shoulder in the forest winked in and out of her mind. Evie pushed the image aside as best she could, not wanting to dwell on it.
“And then you stopped?”
Samuel shook his head slowly. “Nothing was going to stop me. I wanted him dead. I still do. It’s hard to explain this thing inside me,” he confessed, the words laced with self-loathing. “Toby described it as a curse, and that’s what it feels like. It’s sick and depraved and demands to be satisfied.”
“There’s not a drop of anything sick or depraved in you, Samuel.”
Shifting to his side, he moved to lay next to her. “Cohen sent out a text letting everyone know about Toby before he went after you guys. I arrived first, but my dad and the police weren’t far behind. They arrived as Cohen was taking you guys out of the forest. Dad tried to stop me, but when he couldn’t physically pry me off Toby, he said the one thing that broke through all that fucking darkness.”
She curled into him, nuzzling his neck. “What?”
“Evie will never forgive you,” he whispered into her hair, splaying a hand on the center of her back to draw her closer. “That’s all he had to say to get me to stop, because nothing else matters but you.”
Angling her head to look at him, Evie stroked a finger down his cheek. “I already told you; I don’t know how not to love you. Forgiveness is a part of that, and if you had followed through, I wouldn’t have been upset over the loss of Toby. My concern would lie with you and the guilt you would feel.”
He gave her a half smile. “Forgiveness, huh? You and I have never really been good at that. Like, I’m still pretty pissed about you running off to New Orleans.”
“My point is, we would have worked through it. That’s what this is about, wading through this messy life. Together.”
“Are you sure it’s not aboutthis?“ The hand on her back drifted lower to give her ass a squeeze. “But whatever you’re saying sounds good, too.”
He was joking to help her relax, but she wasn’t about to let him hide. Samuel had been truly terrified out there. “I belong to you and only you.”
The soft smile on his lips faded. “I used that against him,” he told her as if ashamed. “In a way, I repeated everything Selah once said to me. The words split me in two back then, and I was hoping it would do the same to him.”
“What Toby thinks he feels for me is not the same as what you and I have.”
“I know, but I did it to distract him long enough for Cohen to make his move.” Samuel kissed her, biting at her bottom lip. “But then you jumped up like something out ofNight of the Living Deadand scared the ever-loving shit out of me.”
She huffed. “Excuse me, but what I did was incredibly brave.”
Samuel frowned, unamused. “I swear to God, if you ever do anything like that again, Evangeline, I will lock you away forever.”
“Hopefully, confronting serial killers will be something we only do on special occasions.”
She rolled to her back, rubbing her temples to massage the ache in her head that refused to give up. “I need Tylenol or something.”
“Let’s get you checked out.”
The thought of joining the mayhem downstairs turned her stomach. “Do we have to?”
