Page 63 of Regrets
“I did, Linc. I broke his heart, and he ran far away from me.”
She’s been carrying that for a year all on her own. “You should have told me. I could have told you how fucking stupid that is.”
She shakes her head and turns away from me, lathering face wash in her hand and washing her face, rinsing it off quickly. “You just don’t get it.”
I take her arm and spin her to face me as she wipes the last bit of cleanser from her face with her hand. “I do get it. I’ve spent the last year feeling like shit too. Because I wasn’t there when my little brother died and because I fucked his girl while he was still alive.”
“I can’t take the guilt.”
I expected a fight. That’s what she’s been giving me for years, but she looks so fucking broken as the sobs start and I pull her body tightly to mine, letting her cry against my chest.
“I thought we agreed to try to move on?”
“And we both knew that wasn’t going to last when we said it. We can’t help but punish each other, Linc. It’s all we have. It’s what we’ve done since the beginning.”
I grip her hair with my fingers, tugging her head back slightly to look up at me. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to give you what you need.”
Penelope has always had a fire in her, one that clashes with my own and burns so fucking hot we seem to set our world ablaze when we get too close.
Maybe we both need someone calmer, although that sounds incredibly fucking boring to me.
“I told you, Linc I don’t need you to be someone else.” Her lips move over mine as she uses her teeth to pull on my bottom lip. “I don’t need sweet.”
“That’s good because I don’t think I have one bit of sugar in me.”
Her mouth moves over my neck and my shoulder, leaving a quick nip there and then turning me around to look at the back of my shoulder.
The tattoo.
Colt’s birthday and the day he died.
I got it the day after the funeral. I feel her hand brush over my skin and the ink that lives there, and then I hiss when I feel her nails scrape over it and down my back as she moves back in front of me, her eyes meeting mine. “I don’t want nice.”
“Because he’s gone. Now you just want to be hurt forever?”
She presses her body against me, her firm tits against my chest as her teeth nip my earlobe. “I liked to befucked. And I have no shame about that.”
The grin that spreads over my face couldn’t be stopped if I tried as I spin her body away from me, grabbing her hips and pressing her forward so her hands flatten against the tile of the shower. I push inside her, my cock hard and aching for her.
Okay, so we’re fucked-up.
I mean, hell, we’ve been doing this dance for so fucking long. The first attempt at killing the pain with more pain was the day of the funeral.
When I fucked her in his old room.
And all we’ve done since that day is added to the long list of torture and debauchery.
34
PENELOPE
ONE YEAR AGO
Istare into the reflection of a metal baseball trophy on Colt’s dresser, hating the reflection. Hating everything.
He died.
He’s gone forever, and it’s all my fault.
