Page 5 of Badd Love
She shook her head, hyperventilating. "C-c-can't."
I rested a hand on the smooth, warm skin of her back just above her shoulder blades. "Keep trying. Take a breath. Slow it down."
"Don't—d-don't…don'ttouchme," she hissed.
I removed my hand immediately and sank to my ass on the dirty ground beside her. "Okay, no touching."
"Go away."
"No."
"Dane. Fuck off."
"When you can stand up and breathe normally again, I'll leave you alone. Not until then."
"I d-d-didn't a-a-a-sk for your h-h-h-help."
"Too damn bad, Killer. You got me anyway."
So I sat next to her as she knelt in a quasi-fetal position on the dirty alley ground, her sobs and body-wracking shudders slowly subsiding.
Eventually, she stood up and began pacing back and forth. I remained on the ground, sipping my beer and watching her pace.
She came back to where I was and leaned against the wall. Didn't look at me as she spoke. "I don't owe you any explanations."
"I disagree. I've spent the last several months trying to figure out what I did to make you freak out like that. And I've come up empty. I don't think it's too much to ask for you to tell me what I did."
She didn't answer for a very long time, and I waited in silence for her response, sipping beer and occasionally stealing glances at her long, smooth, tanned legs.
When it felt clear she wasn’t going to even respond, I stood up, tossed my empty bottle into the dumpster, and paused at thedoor to the kitchen. "Fuck me. Got it. Well, have a nice fucking life, Lindsey. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry for whatever it was I did. I mean that. I don’t expect you to give a fuck, but it's true."
I held my place for another beat, but she still said nothing. With a huff and a headshake, I left her there alone and went back to the party.
By three a.m.,everyone over thirty was gone, leaving only the younger crowd—my boatload of cousins. And we can fuckin' party. Duncan and Rune had long since left as well, with an encouragement to us to keep the party going. Which we did.
Lindsey rallied, but stuck mainly to Raquel's side, hanging out with the handful of LA kids who were Rune's friends.
By four, I wasn't hammered, but I was pretty damn sloshed, and ready to call it. Rune and Duncan had taken their honeymoon to Hawaii—a last getaway before she was too pregnant to fly, which I hadn't realized was a thing, and before they had a baby and wouldn't be taking any vacations for a long damn time.
Which meant the guest room upstairs was open—Duncan had given me blanket permission to crash there when I needed, as long as I understood that they weren't going to be quiet on my account.
Noted.
Fortunately, they were on the flight to Hawaii, and I wouldn't have to hear them boning.
Thank god for that.
I shuffled, dizzy and unsteady, upstairs. Bounced off half a dozen different walls, found the guest room. Took a five-year-long piss in the en suite bathroom, stripped out of my clothes, and collapsed in the bed.
I wokeup wrapped around a soft, warm, naked female body. Her bare ass was pressed against my groin, which was throbbing with a giant boner.
Um.
I went to bed alone. IknowI did.
I cracked an eye open, saw a tangled haze of blonde. She shifted, and I caught a glimpse of a medusa tattoo at the base of her neck, usually hidden by her hair. She flung her arm aside, showing a semicolon tattoo on the inside of her wrist.
Lindsey.
