Chapter 2 #4
“Why are you here, Serena?” As much as he needed to find out what had happened, he also needed to know why she’d come to him.
She wasn’t stupid. She knew this was his sister’s bar.
No, her showing up at The Fainting Goat wasn’t a coincidence.
He turned to face her and stopped. She wasn’t sitting in one of the chairs but leaning her ass against the desk, her hands pressed to her temples.
“Look, Milo. I know you don’t want to see me any more than I want to see you.” Her fingers moved in a circular motion, as if she were massaging a headache away.
Guilt lit a fire in his guts. He shrugged before she could continue. “Doesn’t bother me any.”
She squinted. He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. No way he could tell her how much seeing her affected him. God, he’d wanted to see her for two fucking years—to explain, to apologize, hell, to see if she’d made it to safety that night . . . and here she was.
Her eyes shot blue fire. “Bullshit.”
What could he say to that? After all, he’d told her he never wanted to see her again, and at the time, he’d meant it.
At Alban’s, he’d been on the cusp of escaping the life he’d been trapped in.
He’d held a ticket to freedom he couldn’t pass up.
Seeing Serena that night had been like seeing the demons of his past holding shackles out, ready to confine him.
He and Serena had both been so entrenched in the lifestyle, so he couldn’t blame her for that.
But he’d desperately wanted to become an honest citizen—everything his father wasn’t.
Now that he was, he felt like a pile of shit for telling her he never wanted to see her again.
She flicked her hair over her shoulder. Time to change the subject.
“Tell me what happened. You look like shit.”
She snorted and rubbed her index finger beneath her eye, smearing the black marks even more. “Still a sweet-talker, I see.”
He closed the distance between them, and she lifted her chin. God she was pale. Her pupils remained dilated, even under the brighter lights. Her difficulty talking about the accident could have something to do with shock.
“Is that why you’re here? You want me to sweet-talk you?” He was pressing her buttons, but something had to get her talking.
Her lips moved into a smirk. “Easy, Milo.” She pressed her palm to his chest, easing him back a step. Her icy palm ate through the material of his T-shirt. “I had nowhere else to go.” Her tongue swept across her top teeth, and she curled her fingers away from his pec.
Looking at her, he zeroed in on a stain on the cuff of her sweater. He lifted her elbow.
He pulled at the material and saw a river of dried blood on the inside of her sleeve. “Why the hell is there blood on your arm?”
Her arm shook. “Oh, god. Oh my god.” Her free hand grabbed at his forearm. “I’m going to get sick.”
He towed her to the bathroom adjoined to the office. She cupped her hands around the white porcelain sink and sucked in several low breaths. Her shoulders shuddered on each inhale. He pressed one hand on the center of her back and smoothed back her hair with the other.
Her eyes met his in the mirror. Tears brimmed along her lashes. The bottom dropped out of his stomach at the sight of the cerulean blues that always glowed when she cried. “Serena, what happened?”
She shook her head and straightened. “I need to get this off.” She shrugged out of her sweater and a low wail escaped her lips when she found an even bigger stain on her white shirt.
She ripped the material over her head, baring her white lace bra.
She pumped the soap dispenser and began scrubbing at the bloodstain on her skin.
“Honey, don’t worry about the stains. I want to know what happened.” His patience was thinning. “Where are you hurt?” He inspected her body.
She stopped scrubbing and turned to face him. “Milo, it’s not my blood.” Her bottom lip trembled, and she dropped her forehead to his chest.
“I—I killed someone.”
He locked his arms around her. The need to comfort her, to erase whatever the hell had happened, scorched his body with the force of a flash fire. If she’d killed someone, it hadn’t been in cold blood. Serena was headstrong, not coldhearted.
“Who?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she whispered.
He rubbed his hands over the clip of her bra and down to the waistband of her skirt.
Even in heels, she was so much smaller than him.
Hell, how had he forgotten the mold of her body?
His muscles had no problem laminating to her slight frame as easily as they had more than a decade ago.
But his brain had forgotten this. How her shoulders fit perfectly against his ribcage, her cheek against his sternum, and her belly against his cock.
Christ, if he didn’t get a handle on his lust soon, he’d be of no use to her.
She needed warmth, food, and clean clothes. Not sex.
“You can tell me everything after. Let’s get you cleaned up and fed first, all right?”
She nodded, and he took one last inhale of her intoxicating floral scent. Every ounce of resistance that had taken up residence in his heart on seeing her vanished. She needed him. And this time, he wouldn’t cower. As soon as he got her calm, he’d find out what the fuck had happened.
And then he’d kill the sonofabitch if she hadn’t already.