Page 50 of Unhinged Cravings
“You really hate him, don’t you?” she asked, seeing my reaction.
“Loathe is a better word.”
“But you’re brothers. What did he do that was so bad?”
“Stole something.” Bringing back memories of that day always spoiled my mood, but with Ava there, it didn’t.
She waited for me to say more and when I didn’t, she asked, “What could be that important to lose a brother over?”
“A woman,” I admitted. But she hadn’t been a woman. All of us had been kids. Just twenty years old and what had we known about the world? We were three years into building our empire. Rolling in money, power, and women.
“What kind of woman has that power?”
None, but it hadn’t been her. It had been Greyson. “One I loved, and my brother decided to use to prove she didn’t love me.” Saying it sounded idiotic. “He called me, telling me I needed to see something, and when I walked in, she was on her knees with his cock filling her mouth. She didn’t even pause as he told me she was nothing but the whore he’d warned me she was.”
“Huh.” I squinted at her reaction. “Seems like an asshole move to me.”
“Yeah. I left that day, packed up and moved to Seagate to start my own business.”
“How long, Emerson? How long has this rift gone on?”
“Twenty-five years. It seems like a lifetime ago.”
“It was a shitty move, but maybe he thought you needed to see it to believe it?”
I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t help the nagging memories of him warning me over and over. Of not listening to what he was saying, that he’d seen her screwing another of our friends. Seen her going down on one of our guys after that. And each time I’d dismissed him, the rift already forming because I accused him of trying to take her from me, assumed he wanted her and was trying to make me give her up. Until he finally showed me the proof.
“Yeah, it was a shitty move.”
“Does it help that the Greyson Tides I know is not that man? He loves Riley?—”
“And I loved…” But I trailed off because I knew it hadn’t been real love. I’d gotten over her in days, but the grudge had lasted for decades. The hate I had for Greyson had devoured the speck of love I’d had for the girl. But I’d never loved again, never gotten close enough. Maybe Ava was right, and I’d been waiting to find someone worth loving.
“Let’s go back inside. I could use a drink.” I didn’t want to talk about my brother anymore or the situation that was drowning me.
“So you’re not going to kill me?” she asked, changing the subject, seemingly reading my mood.
“No, I could never hurt you, Ava.” Honest, raw. I didn’t like the vulnerability, and I started to rise, but she grabbed my shirt and pulled me toward her. My hands went to either side of her head as I landed on top of her.
“Breaker said you went to your club the other night. You were gone a long time.” There was a question in her statement.
“Yeah.” I adjusted my legs so that I hovered over her. “I had business, and I needed to get away.”
“From me?” A bold question and one I hesitated to answer. “Did you do business with a brunette?” Her brow quirked like she was trying to be cute, but her eyes shone with the expectation of hurt.
“There may have been a sexy brunette in an even sexier dress who had an impressive pair of tits.”
The devastation flashed before she could hide it, and my pulse thumped hard in my veins. This was a moment where I could have stopped the madness, taken us back to hostage and captor, rid myself of the muddled thoughts and emotions. But that would have been the equivalent of ignoring my brother’s warnings all those years ago. It would leave me wounded, and I suspected it would leave Ava just as hurt.
She swallowed, her eyes drifting from mine.
“But I told her to go away.” Ava’s eyes flew back, wide and hopeful.
“Why?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
Another moment, another decision. Be the man I’d always been, hard, cruel, unkind, or be the man I was when I was with her, vulnerable but happy. “Because there was an even sexier woman at home with a better pair of tits who promised a night of contentedly warming my bed as she read her dirty romance books.”
The smile that formed reached the corners of her eyes, leaving them almost golden. “You think my tits are nice?”
