Page 44 of Wicked Minds
“Did you really think I was stalking you?” I ask curiously. “Isn’t that a bit self-obsessed? You’re notthatdesirable.”
My attitude earns me an arched brow, one filled with sly seduction.Really? It says.Is that why you couldn’t stay away?I promptly ignore it.
“Why would I go out of my way to invoke your wrath?” Drawing my finger in a circle around his face, indicating the mean mug he’s perfected, I state, “No dick is worth that.”
He chokes on his hot chocolate.
“In my defense,no onefrom Halston would be caught dead in The Depot.”
“Except for you three.” I counter.
He shrugs. A blatant,well, yeah.
“Why is that?”
“Fuck if I know, James. Maybe because we’re all broken in a way the other students aren’t. Our demons are closer to the surface. There’s a weight, a darkness that sets us apart. I’m not saying no other student has their issues. Every single one of us is fractured, yes, but we…”
“—Your cracks are chasms,” I finish when he appears stumped for words. “Your demons aren’t content to lurk in the corners and bide their time. They whisper in your ear, piercing through the relative peace until they dance in the center of your existence. Making it so you can’t function around them.”
“Yes,” Royce agrees, eyes shining with understanding. “And when you carry those demons for long enough, your everybreath becomes laden. Every step echoes of your battle fought in silence.”
“It’s in those ink-dark waters that the three of you became united,” I piece together.
“Like recognizes like,” Royce states, astute eyes on me. “But you know that as well as I do.”
Because it’s in those same dark, icy waters of isolation that I found each of them. Where the tendrils of the darkness encasing my soul unfurled and reached out to him. To Logan. To Grayson. And whisperedhello.
A heavy stillness falls over us. An acknowledgment of the traumas wrapped like a silent shroud around each of us, impelling a solitude that most dare not touch. However, I am not afraid. Nor is Royce. We stare into the face of one another’s trauma, and we do not recoil. For we appreciate what many others would not—the resilience of the human spirit, the embodiment of shadows turned to strength, the wisp of light that can be borne from the darkest of nights.
14
ROYCE
Ican’t stop replaying our kiss last night. How fucking good it felt. How I had to physically pull myself back to stop us from going any further. I wanted to. God, did I want to… and I know in the moment she wanted to as well. However, knowing she didn’t trust me absolutely was enough incentive for me to stop it before it could go any further.
I shouldn’t even have allowed myself to kiss her. That hadn’t been on my agenda. When she’s invading my senses like that, it makes it impossible for me to think straight. All I want to do is touch. Taste. Devour.
If that asshole boss of hers hadn’t tried to pull a move last night, I never would have let her beguile me into going up to her apartment. She never would have gotten that close to me. Without the barrier of my truck’s central console, I was helpless to stop myself from touching what wasn’t mine.
And then I went and told her we were fucking inevitable, when what I should have said was that she needs to stay away from me. That I’m not good enough for her. That I’m irreparably damaged and unfixable and incapable of giving her what she needs.
And when she finds out the accusations that have been levied against me… she’ll want nothing to do with me after that. She’ll fall… and hit the ground when she learns how interconnected my past is with hers.
The trauma it might cause her… bringing up those memories for her is the last thing I want to do.
Which is why I should be staying away. Observing from a distance, protecting her from the shadows. Except, she makes it impossible to stay away. To resist. To deny.
“You’re looking particularly tortured today,” Logan teases as he walks into the kitchen, where I’ve been staring into my coffee cup for so long that it’s gone cold.
“Lot on my mind,” I mumble, standing up and emptying the contents down the sink before refilling it from the pot.
Logan is watching me with a frown. “Did something happen with Riley? You said that boss of hers is a sleazeball. Did he try to pull something last night?”
“It’s not that. I… kissed Riley.”
“Bastard.” There’s no heat behind Logan’s insult, and when I glance up at him, he’s smirking. “What the fuck are you looking so put out for, then? I can tell you, if I got the chance to kiss Riley again, I sure as fuck wouldn’t look like someone pissed in my cereal.”
“Because I shouldn’t have kissed her,” I blurt out in exasperation. “What’s going to happen when she learns of my past?”
