Insatiable (The Edge of Darkness, #1)(25)

My shoulder hits his arm as I storm past him, down the steps two at a time until I reach my car, where it takes me ten minutes to control my breathing .

I pull my phone out, open my secret folder and send Barry a message that I’m contactable for the next few days. He lets me know that two cars have been sitting outside, waiting for me.

Always waiting.

I might not fear much, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need my own security team. They’re always there. Out of sight but ready for anything thrown my way.

Bernadette doesn’t know about them obviously, because they’re there to protect me from her twisted games. She likes to play them when I piss her off – randomly sending someone to try to beat the shit out of me or shoot me somewhere non-fatal.

Everyone she’s sent so far has turned up dead, without the need to use my guards. If she didn’t want her men killed, then she shouldn’t have sent me away to different countries for intense training in weapons and martial arts.

My team doesn’t know how extreme it gets with Bernadette and her husband, and if I can help it, I’ll keep it that way. They’re my soldiers – one word that I’m abused, and they’ll open fire and lose their lives.

I have hundreds beneath me, but Bernadette has tens of thousands. I know the probability of surviving that kind of war.

I turn on my engine, still controlling my breathing and the need to go in there and put a bullet between everyone’s eyes. I’m pissed off more than usual, probably because of Base’s message.

After a night of hell and threats and unwanted sex, all I’m thinking about is what Stacey replied to Base. If he’s said he’s picking her up then, surely, she must’ve accepted his offer?

Fuck, I hope not. I’m in no mood for drama. Thankfully, Jason isn’t going to America, eliminating that issue. I’d rather drown myself than spend any time with him.

The sun is starting to rise as Stacey’s estate comes into view, and when I stop outside her house, I hide the gun back in my glovebox.

I look up at her window; the curtains are closed but for the small gap she usually leaves in the middle, so the sun can wake her. Despite what happened, I’m drawn to her so much that I’ve climbed up to her window four times over the last two years and watched her sleep. Even contemplated sneaking in once.

I could do it now, right?

Fuck, no. I need to repress all these impulsive thoughts.

I turn down my music, pull out my phone and stare at her contact details.

Freckles.

She’s been blocked for nearly two years. I doubt she even attempted to message me within that time period. She probably deleted my number and moved on to the next sad bastard to poison.

I stare at the last messages between us.

Freckles: She’s asleep now. Meet you at the pool house?

Me: I’ll race you.

Freckles: I always win, remember?

Only hours later, the messages went from cute and playful to desperate and pleading.

Freckles: Please answer the phone, Kade. Let me explain.

Freckles: I want to fix this. Please.

Loads of missed calls, and, a week later, she says:

Freckles: Luciella said you moved out. Where did you go? Please talk to me. I love you .

That last part made me go feral. I’d taken my first line of coke that night and gone on a four-day bender with Base in America.

I love you. Nope, she didn’t love me. She had no idea what love was. I blocked her right after I typed several responses without sending any.

It was only days later that Bernadette approached me outside of the dance studio as I contemplated going in, and I wish so fucking much I’d walked away from her false offer.

Gritting my teeth, raging at myself for reading the messages again – something I’ve done a billion times while off my head on drugs or drowning myself in booze – I do the unthinkable.

I unblock her number.

My blood is roaring in my ears, fingers trembling as I change her contact name and type a message to her.

Me: I’m outside.

There. Simple and straight to the point. No need to overcomplicate it. After two years of keeping my distance, I broke my rules by following her to the front gate, by watching her dance, by approaching her and letting her touch me, by letting myself remember every sound she’d ever made for me.

When her hand wrapped around my cock – the lie that wasn’t a lie – I forgot what she’d done. But I remember now. And I refuse to let her fuck with my head again.

My heart races as soon as my phone vibrates in my hand, nerves shattering into fragments at her three-word response. I’m a pathetic piece of shit.

Stacey: Well hello, stranger.

I stop my lips from tugging up into a smirk, my chest tightening as I swallow. “Waste Love” begins playing, and I turn it up slightly, but not loud enough to wake her family. I remember her saying her stepmother hated visitors, hated anyone in the house, which is why I was always climbing through her window.

Me: Move or I’ll drive away.

She types, deletes, types, deletes. I nearly send another message when she responds.

Stacey: I’m rolling my eyes at you. Be 5 mins.

Her bedroom light turns on, the curtains opening to reveal her glancing down at me in only her bra. My skin prickles with goosebumps at the fresh memory of my mouth on her tit, heat rushing up my spine and making my dick twitch.