Chapter 10 #3
It’s easy to forget we once had that kind of relationship.
A real friendship where Willow, Killian, Liam, Raven, and I could count on each other for anything any of us needed.
As children, the McBride homestead was a safe place for everyone.
Mom opened her arms and the door of the cabin to anyone who needed a soft place to land or a warm hug, and the fact that one night changed all that for Raven hurts more than anything.
“I knew that you would take care of me, Connor. That you wouldn’t hurt me.” She twists that damn knife and shoves it deeper. “And then, you went and hurt me in an even worse way.”
Fuck.
I pace away from her in the tight cabin, only able to move a few steps before I hit the door, but it puts more space between us that I desperately need.
My escape is now permeated with her scent—that soft floral note that clings to her even up here.
It’s impossible to breathe in this cabin without it invading my lungs.
Being stuck up this mountain with Raven was always going to be dangerous, but now it feels like that blade of hers is poised at my heart, that the tip of it is threatening to pierce straight through it.
This hatred for Raven developed because of how volatile she’s been with me since we were teenagers, how intently she’s gone out of her way to attack me, my character, my family, my brothers without regard for what she should do, which is mind her own fucking business.
But now, seeing what she thinks, knowing how wrong she’s viewed everything from that fucking night on, I almost understand it.
Because the way she looked at me the next time I saw her after that night felt just as awful as this does now.
“I need you to understand something, Raven. You seem to always think the worst of me, and you apparently have since that night, maybe even before it, but I did it to protect you. Just like I’m doing this to protect you.
And I would, whether you were Willow’s friend or not, because it’s the right thing to do.
Because…”—I release a mirthless laugh—“because even though you make me angrier than any person on this fucking planet, I don’t want to see you hurt.
I don’t want to see anything happen to you. ”
“Because it would hurt Willow and Killian, and Liam and Lucky—”
“No.” I shake my head. “Because it would hurt me.”
Her back tenses, a wary look deepening the green of her eyes.
“The last few months, my life has been this dark hole, where all I’ve felt is pain and guilt about what happened that night on the homestead.
I’ve felt like I haven’t been living, like I haven’t been able to breathe.
The only time it has felt like I was alive is when I’ve been arguing with you.
You may spark something in me that I hate, but at least it sparks something.
Like a tiny firefly, a fleck of light in the darkness.
That’s what you’ve been the last few months.
So, despite how much we hate each other, our arguing, whatever the fuck this is”—I motion between us—“has reminded me that I am alive, even if I don’t want to be at times. ”
She sucks in a sharp breath. “You don’t mean that…”
I scrub my hands over my face and close my eyes again, releasing a long sigh.
It would be a lie if I said there weren’t times when I thought about just ending everything. Coming up here and hiking to the most remote place I can so that Killian and Liam don’t have to find me. They’ll know what I did without having to see me like that or knowing how I did it.
But, in this moment, I don’t mean it.
Bringing her up here has given me a reason to keep going, even if that reason is like a thorn in my fucking side.
I open my eyes to find her moving closer, tentatively, as if she’s afraid I might bite.
“Connor…look me in the eye and tell me you’re not going to hurt yourself.”
The flicker of sincerity and emotional waver in her voice make my chest tighten.
I hold her gaze. “I’m not.”
She presses her lips together, as if she doesn’t believe me, and she searches my face for the lie.
Standing directly in front of me with her chest almost touching mine, staring up at me with those emerald green eyes, a flash of lightning lighting up her blond hair, she once again she looks more like an angel than the fucking demon I’ve made her out to be.
My eyes dip to her mouth.
Those lips so capable of spewing such hateful, hurtful things have revealed so much I never knew.
And just like when I found her sleeping, I’m mesmerized by them.
They’re so fucking perfect.
Plump and pink.
So sweet looking.
“Fuck it…”
I take her face between my palms and crush my mouth against hers.
Her hands press into my chest, and for a second, her entire body stiffens before she relaxes into my hold and returns the kiss, a heated, feverous smashing of lips against each other that’s as wild and reckless and pent up with tension as everything always is around us.
For a second, all the reasons we’re here, the things done and said that got us to this point and brought us up this mountain, vanish.
A sharp crack of thunder shakes the cabin and slowly drags me back to reality.
What the fuck am I doing?
I tear away from her, releasing my hold on her, and stagger back, searching with my hand until it finds the doorknob. Without looking back at her, not able to face the pure insanity of what I just did, I jerk the door open and storm off into the night.