Poison Petals (The Broken Devotion Duet Book 2), page 14
“The way you’ve protected me.”
“Always you. Even when you probably wouldn’t have wanted me to.”
Her lips curve around the rim of her glass, but she doesn’t argue. She knows it’s true.
“Cain—Lucien’s twin—he’s a different fucking breed. He’s smart as hell, but he’s reckless, and he’s gotten himself into some dark shit that me and Lucien have had to clean up more than once.”
The memory claws its way up—sirens cutting through the night, red soaking the pavement, my hands stained with Cain’s blood while he laughed like he didn’t have a bullet lodged in him. That pain in the ass raw-dogs danger like it’s nothing, and he’s had more close calls than I can count. Stupid, stubborn fuck. I didn’t ask for him, but now he’s part mine, whether I like it or not.
“I’ve only ever really gotten my hands dirty for you, but I’d do it for them too.”
“How did you meet them?”
“Through my roommate in college. I got close with Lucien first, and he walked me through a door I’ve never come back out of.”
That first night, he sat across from me with a laptop open, lines of code streaming across the screen faster than I could follow, and the look in his eyes told me I was either in or I needed to forget I’d ever been there.
“He and Cain brought me in and taught me everything I know—how to break into systems people have spent millions protecting, how to pull information that could destroy lives or save them, depending on who was paying. Sometimes it was for people who deserved the help, people who’d been fucked over by someone with too much power. Sometimes it was for people who didn’t deserve shit but paid well enough that we didn’t ask questions about what they’d do with what we found, and I went with it because I had nothing to lose.”
“Will I ever meet them?”
“Yeah, baby, because that leads me into the rest of my dream, which has always been you. I wanna marry you. I don’t care where, as long as it’s you walking toward me, choosing forever. I should probably invite them, or they’ll have my balls, especially since they’ve listened to me talk about you for the better part of a decade. So you’ll definitely meet them then. Then one day, when you’re ready, I’ll give you two babies. Two little pieces of us who get to grow up knowing what it feels like to be safe and loved every single day. And we’ll move somewhere where we can look up at the sky again, somewhere the stars aren’t drowned out by city lights, and you can actually see the whole universe stretched out above us.”
I look at her like it’s already real, as if I can see it playing out in front of me, moments away from happening instead of some distant dream I’ve been holding onto for years.
“It’ll be you, me, and them.”
“How long have you been thinking about this?”
“Parts of it started the day we met.” I reach out and wrap a strand of her red hair around my knuckle. “I know we don’t need to rehash that day. I know you know I had nothing to do with what happened, but I’m sorry for every way I failed you leading up to that. Jesus, everything could’ve been so different if I hadn’t fucked it all up.”
“I wouldn’t have what I do now if it hadn’t gone down that way.”
And that hits harder than anything else she could’ve said because she wouldn’t trade those years back. She wouldn’t undo what tore us apart, even if she could.
Not for us.
Not for me.
“You hurt me, Phoenix, and that doesn’t even scratch the surface of how broken I was, but it made me strong. It made me pull together a life I could’ve only ever dreamed about.”
“And now?” I ask, knowing there’s a chance her answer might gut me. But when she lifts her eyes, all I see is the girl who used to look at me like I could raise hell and she’d still stand there with her arms wide open, trusting me not to let her burn.
“Now you’ve really gone and shaken shit up.”
“I’m not sorry for that.”
“I didn’t think you would be.”
“So what about you? Dream life? You living it… or still chasing it?”
“Now that I’m not going to answer.”
“Why not?”
“Because first of all, I’m not even sure what that is, and secondly, I can’t tell you anything without you holding it against me.”
“Does it involve me? That’s all I’ll ask.”
“Hasn’t my entire life already involved you?”
I’m taking that as a fucking yes, but I hold back from pushing her.
“Can I ask you something?”
“I’m an open book, baby. You can always ask me whatever you want.”
“What happened to Greg?”
That prick.
“I just figured…” She shrugs, playing off her curiosity even though she’s dying to know if I buried that motherfucker in a shallow grave somewhere. “You kind of made your way around that group, and you never mentioned him.”
There’s a fantasy I play out sometimes when I can’t sleep, where I take him out into the woods, cave his smug fucking face in with my bare knuckles, and fling his teeth into a bag.
“Greg’s married to some rich old-money princess. But as soon as she takes a girls’ trip to the Hamptons, Greg is in a hotel room, bent over for a guy he calls Daddy, begging to get his ass beat raw with a leather strap before making the guy finish on his wife’s face in the wedding photo he takes to every hookup.”
She just stares at me, mouth open, blinking like she doesn’t even know how to process that.
“You asked, pretty girl… oh, and Cassie’s dead. Not my fault that one—that was a freak accident I wasn’t a part of.”
“Jesus… I can’t believe she’s dead—” She shakes her head, still trying to catch up. “And he’s gay?”
“I always figured he was at least bi. I caught him staring at my dick a few times, and not just mine.”
“Well… you do admittedly have a nice dick.”
I reach out and haul her into my arms, my body deciding for me that I need her closeness. She lands in my lap, her legs around my waist, my hands holding her ass over her thick coat. Her arms snake around my neck, and she looks down at me with that rare, maddening softness in her eyes that makes everything inside me ache.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I rasp, even though I’m clinging to every second of it. Because, fuck me, please keep looking at me like I’m not the worst thing that’s ever loved you.
My hands slide up her back, my fists twisting in her coat, pulling her down until our foreheads nearly touch.
I need her closer. I need her inside my skin.
Her fingers find the back of my neck right over the raw skin of the tattoo that hasn’t even finished healing, and I feel it everywhere. My body betrays me with a hard shudder, my breath stuttering as I’m barely holding myself together.
“God, you’re killing me here, baby.” I breathe, not even trying to hide how gone I am. “I’m trying to do this right, but if you keep looking at me like that, I’m going to do it so beautifully wrong, you’ll never forget it.”
The connection between us—fuck, it feels like it’s alive.
I never lost this feeling, not for a second. But she did. She had to let it go to survive, even if some part of her kept reaching back for me in those beautiful, brutal letters I reread until they burned themselves into my head. And now she’s here in my lap, thighs wrapped around my hips, staring down at me like she never really let go.
“If I hadn’t gone back to that reunion, would you ever have come for me?”
I hate that question because the answer isn’t simple. It’s shame and self-punishment and the way I knew—and still know—I don’t deserve her.
“Only when I felt like I had any right to be a part of your life.”
“I would’ve let you in, you know, if you’d shown yourself. I would’ve screamed at you the way I have been, sure, but it wouldn’t have lasted. Not after the shock wore off.”
She brushes a strand of hair from my face, and I close my eyes because I can’t look at her when she says things like that. I can’t face the way she’s just handed me this alternate universe where I showed up as her monster, and she welcomed me home anyway.
“Don’t,” I choke out, my hands dragging her body flush against mine until there’s no space left between us. “Don’t give me that version of us. I can’t—”
“Can’t what?” Her thumb traces my cheekbone, and I melt into it, craving the way she offers me her affection. “Can’t imagine that I would’ve chosen you anyway? Despite everything you’ve done.”
“Stop, Shannen.”
“No, you don’t get to decide anymore what I get to fight for. You don’t get to take that choice from me again, Phoenix.”
“Be real with me for a minute, baby. What do you honestly think would’ve happened if I showed up years ago? If I’d just walked back into your life as if nothing had happened? Do you really think you’d have been ready for me? Because the girl in those letters wasn’t writing me love notes.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But so much time has passed, and I wish…”
She stops talking as a single raindrop lands on her cheek. I lean forward and kiss it away, tasting the cold water and the salt of her skin beneath it. My lips linger there longer than necessary because I’m a greedy bastard who’ll take any excuse to put my mouth on her.
“I wish you’d come to me,” she whispers against my temple.
“I’m here now. But you have to stop pushing me away when you want me close, because I feel it, Shannen.”
More raindrops land on her face, and I know the sky’s about to break open. We both know this night is running out of time.
“If you know me so well, then you’ll know I’ve lied to you, Phoenix.” She smiles, and the rain is coming down harder now, plastering her hair to her face and running down her neck in rivulets I want to chase with my tongue.
“You have?” Her lashes lower, and rain beads on them like diamonds, and she nods, her teeth tugging at her bottom lip. “Can you tell me?”
But she doesn’t answer with words. Instead, her lips drop to mine, and the entire world ceases to exist. Her tongue slips past my lips, and the sound that rips from my throat is pure animal because, fuck, I love the way she kisses. She takes what she wants like she owns me, her mouth greedy and demanding, and I’d unleash hell just to feel this for another second.
Fine, one date, but I’m not having sex with you.
The lie.
She was never going to be able to resist us.
She pulls back suddenly, her lips ghosting over mine. “Take me to your bed, Phoenix.”
Mine, not hers, because she knows what that means. She knows no one else has ever been in my bed and that my sheets haven’t known another body but mine. She knows it’s not just a bed. It’s a boundary, and now she’s asking to cross it.
My chest collapses in on itself, and my lungs stop working entirely from how much this means because it’s not about sex. It never was. It’s never been about the physical act of fucking, or scratching an itch, or any of that meaningless bullshit.
It’s about us, our fate, and the bond we built that will never break.
Chapter 16
Shannen
We’re drenched. My clothes are plastered to my skin. My hair drips into my eyes, and every breath fogs the space between us. But he still hasn’t let me go, not since he stood up on that rooftop with me wrapped around him. He carried me all the way here, and I know exactly which apartment is his now.
When he pushes the door open, I don’t look around. There’s no point. I can’t concentrate on anything when his hands are already on me, sliding over rain-soaked fabric like he’s memorizing what I feel like when I’m wet and wanting.
My mouth finds his neck, and I kiss him hard enough to mark, pressing my lips to his skin, needing to leave proof that I was here.
He hisses—not in pain but in approval.
“Fuck,” he growls against my hair. “Do that again. Mark me. Make me bleed—I don’t care. Just don’t stop touching me.”
I bite down, sucking his skin between my teeth until I taste salt and rain and him.
We reach his bedroom, and he lowers me carefully until my feet touch the floor beside his bed.
“Tell me. I need you to say it.” Wet hands cradle my face, his eyes scanning mine like he’ll find the truth there or die trying. “Please, baby, I need you to… I can’t—”
“I’ve always belonged to you in one way or another, Phoenix.” The words come out breathless as I step forward and press my hand over his heart, right where it’s been beating my name for years. “And this never stopped being mine, did it?”
“Never,” he rasps.
“This isn’t just sex. It could never be just sex with you.” I force myself to stay steady when all I want is to fold into him. “While we figure this out, while I’m learning how to process it and how to be with you—because I know you get it, you know this is a lot—I promise it’ll only be us.”
“Just don’t leave,” he pleads, and it tears through me.
I rest my forehead against his chest, curling my fingers into the front of his soaked shirt.
“I’m not leaving. I need you to know I’m not running.” I tip my head back to look up at him, and for the first time, he looks terrified of wanting me. “I’m yours, Phoenix. Not just in the dark but in the light too.”
I step out of his arms, letting my coat slide from my shoulders and pool at my feet in a wet heap. My fingers hook into the hem of my shirt, and I tug it up and over my head, the fabric clinging to my damp skin. I shiver when the air hits, raising goose bumps along my arms, but it barely registers, not when Phoenix is looking at me like that.
My shoes come off next, then my jeans, and I’m left standing in front of him in nothing but a dark-purple lace set I chose for him, matching the flowers he sent me, because I wanted him to know I’ve been thinking about this.
His chest heaves as he takes me in, and I step toward him. I peel away his clothes—his shirt first, dragging it up and over his head, revealing ink-marked skin I want to trace with my tongue.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers.
My hands run across his body, and I press a kiss to his chest before lacing my fingers with his.
“You’re beautiful, Phoenix.”
I lift his arm so I can run my lips over the dark lines he inked on himself when he wanted me from a distance, sealing them to his skin with gentle kisses so he knows he never has to do this to himself again. I move into his body, and his fingertips trail down my spine until they reach my bra clasp. He fumbles with it for a second, and I feel him exhale shakily against my hair when it finally comes undone. The straps fall down my shoulders so slowly it’s almost torture, and his eyes hold mine, searching my face like he’s looking for any sign that I’ll change my mind.
“You feel—” He groans, his hands sliding up to cup my breasts, his thumbs circling my nipples before pinching them between his fingers. “Tell me you’re real, baby. I’ve had you in my head like this for so long.”
“I’m right here, Phoenix.”
We stare at each other for long seconds before he hoists me into his arms, my legs wrapping around him again just so he can lay me down on his bed. His mouth crashes into mine, kissing me breathless while he kicks off whatever clothes are still clinging to him. Then—holy hell—I feel him.
He rolls his hips and drags his tongue from my mouth down my jaw, my throat, and along my collarbone until he reaches the valley between my breasts. He pauses there for a moment, his mouth hovering over my racing heart as if he’s listening for his name in every frantic beat, refusing to move until he finds it.
Soft kisses trail down my body until he finds the dip of my navel, his tongue swirling slow circles before his teeth scrape over my hip bone. He bites down hard enough that I’m already obsessing over the bruise it’ll leave, and I can’t wait to press my fingers into it tomorrow just to remember the way he’s finally marked me after years of marking himself.
When he reaches the purple lace clinging to me, he goes completely still. He just stares, and even though I’m practically floating off the bed, my hips tilting toward him, begging him to touch me—I force myself to give him this moment because I know how much this matters to him.
“Baby…” he says breathlessly, staring at me after slipping my panties off. I know I’m wet, and I know that’s what has him captivated.
“Phoenix, please… I need you close.”
He lowers himself slowly, bracing his arms on either side of my head, caging me in. My whole body is wound tight, but his is shaking, and all I want is to pull him close and hold him there.
“Are you sure?” I ask because this is the moment he’s built entire years around, and I need to know that this is enough. That it’s everything he’d imagined. That he’s ready.
“You’re mine?”
“Only yours.”
“Then I’m sure.”
He leans in, his forehead pressing against mine, and I feel the weight of his cock at my entrance.
We don’t talk about protection because the thought of anything separating us feels wrong. I want him bare, raw, and filling me so deep I forget there was ever a before this. If this is happening, I need all of him.
He reaches down, and I feel the tremor run through him, his muscles tight and shaking as he wraps his hand around himself.
“Hey,” I whisper, threading my fingers into his hair, pulling his mouth back to mine. “Breathe, I’ve got you.”
His breath punches out against my lips like I just let the air back into his lungs, and the second I kiss him again, I feel the tension drain from his body as he settles into us.
When he nudges forward, the head of his cock presses against my entrance. We both go still, and his eyes squeeze shut like he needs a second to catch his breath.
