Release

by Aly Martinez

  “Ramsey,” I whispered.

  His chest heaved, and his wild eyes scanned my face before landing on my neck. I hadn’t looked in the mirror, but I was positive there was a bite mark. I could all but see the reflection of it in the agony twisting his face.

  “No,” I breathed, slapping a hand over the side of my neck. “I’m okay. I promise.”

  I knew what he was thinking. Who he was comparing himself to. It wasn’t true, but there would be no convincing Ramsey of that.

  “I didn’t tell you to stop because you were hurting me. You aren’t like him.”

  It sounded like the words traveled over broken glass before escaping his throat. “Oh, God, Sparrow. I’m so sorry.”

  Sparrow.

  Sparrow.

  Sparrow.

  The dimensions folded in on themselves, like thin sheets of paper forming one whole. In that moment, it hadn’t been twelve years. It hadn’t even been twelve minutes.

  In that moment, he was hiding in the branches of our tree and I was sitting at the base, waiting for him to finally find me. The ground shook and the few remaining shards of my heart began rattling.

  He was in there. I was his Sparrow, and my Ramsey was in there.

  My chin quivered, and tears sprang to my eyes. “You came back,” I choked out, scrambling to my feet. I raced toward him, not thinking or considering, just needing to be in his arms. Distance had separated us; time had divided us. But we were a team. There was nothing we couldn’t face as long as we were together.

  He was gone before I got anywhere close.

  “Ramsey,” I called after him as he swirled like a tornado bumping into the walls, heading straight for his bedroom. “Wait for me.”

  He didn’t.

  He slammed his bedroom door, clicked the lock, and then killed the light.

  It was my house. My home. My safe haven from the cruel outside world. Yet I’d never wanted to be somewhere less. He was only one door away, but that door might as well have been an entire universe.

  With open hands, I pounded on the door. “Let me in. Take me with you.”

  I tested the door handle, knowing it was locked. Shaking it hard, I tried to break it off the damn hinges. Sobs racked my chest as I gave up and slid to the carpet with my back against the wall.

  I cried myself to sleep in that hallway. Broken, shattered, and more lost than ever before.

  Twelve hours, fifty-eight minutes, and thirteen seconds.

  That was how long Ramsey and I had lasted as friends.

  Like a coward, I hid in the bathroom.

  Bedroom door locked.

  Bathroom door too.

  I couldn’t listen to her beg or plead for a second longer. If I didn’t get the fuck out of there, I was going to peel out of my own skin. I didn’t have my phone, so I couldn’t call Nora. I’d contemplated climbing out the window and making a break for it. Not that I had anywhere I could go.

  But truth be told, I couldn’t leave her.

  I’d never be able to forget the marks on her neck and the tears in my Sparrow’s eyes.

  “Stop, Ramsey.”

  I’d heard her the first time. It just hadn’t felt real. To have her again. To touch her. The heat of her sweet body pressed to mine as she begged me to kiss her. I could have had her. A few flimsy layers of my denim and her cotton had been the only things dividing us.

  I wanted her hard and fast.

  I wanted her naked and crying my name.

  I wanted to plunder her mouth and worship her body.

  But I didn’t want any of that for her.

  One touch—that was all it had taken for her to drive a fucking bulldozer through my resolve. Those damn brick walls I’d spent over a decade building might as well have been made out of tissue boxes when she’d told me there had never been anyone else.

  I was so overcome with the feral need to reclaim her that I’d forgotten the unspoken truth.

  There had been someone after me.

  And it hadn’t been her choice.

  What I’d done to her, throwing her down and dry-humping her like a rabid animal, was the lowest of lows. She’d already lived through hell; she didn’t need my emotional breakdown adding to it.

  She didn’t deserve that.

  She didn’t deserve a man like me.

  I was breaking, emotionally and physically. I couldn’t keep my hands off her, but I couldn’t keep her, either. It was wrong on so many levels. I didn’t even know where to start with the self-loathing.

  No, wait. Yes I did.

  I’d made her cry.

  Again.

  When the tears had fallen from her eyes, it had felt like the tip of a knife dragging across my skin. I loved Thea. I’d spent almost half of my life in prison for killing the asshole who had dared to touch her.

  But maybe I wasn’t any better. Maybe I was the animal who belonged in a cage.

  I buried my head in my hands and leaned back against the bathroom door, the winds of guilt and regret storming inside me like a hurricane.

  Why the fuck was this happening? I’d done everything I could for her. I’d heard the saying, If you love someone, set them free. If they come back, it was meant to be. But Thea had never actually gone anywhere. Nora had never mentioned her dating anyone, but I’d figured the physical stuff had happened at least once. A drunken night. A one-night stand. A friend with benefits. Something. But no. Thea was still mine. And it fucking broke me, because God, did I want that.

  “Kiss me, Ramsey.”

  An icy chill rolled down my spine. Soft as a feather. Hard as a sledgehammer. She’d been so close. Her every breath as it had floated through her parted lips taunted me. One taste and I would have snapped. Planting myself between her legs. Putting a ring on her finger. Making babies. Ruining her fucking life all over again.

  That’s not how you treat a person who saved you. I flat-out refused to repay her for the happiest six years of my entire existence by tying a boulder around her ankle and shoving her into the ocean.

  And that’s what I was for her. A boulder, guaranteed to sink, regardless of how hard she tried to keep me afloat.

  I was almost thirty years old.

  A felon.

  A murderer.

  Homeless.

  Employed out of pity.

  For fuck’s sake, she’d had to buy the clothes on my back for me. And it wasn’t going to change. Sure, in three years, I would be done with parole, but the stigma of my crimes would follow me for the rest of my life.

  And after seeing what I’d done to her like a dog on the floor of her living room, the way I’d touched her and the bruises I’d left on her silky-smooth skin, in a sick way I thought maybe it was for the best.

  Maybe she would finally fucking give up on me once and for all.

  I purred, unfurling from a ball like a kitten as fingers sifted through the top of my hair.

  “Ramsey,” I breathed, forcing my lazy eyes open.

  “Sorry, babe. It’s just me,” Nora said, squatting in front of me.

  Blinking, I waited for my eyes to adjust to the bright lights of the hallway before sitting up. I winced when the devastating weight of last night’s events crashed over me.

  Nora’s gaze searched my face, and she reached out with a single finger to touch my neck. “Knowing you were alone with Ramsey all night, I want to say this looks really fucking good on you. But since you’re sleeping in the hall outside his door at three a.m., I’ll save the party banners for later. You want to talk about it?”

  I swallowed hard. “I don’t know what there is to say. I was so close tonight. Ramsey was here. Like really and truly here. First, we were laughing. Then he got pissed. Then he couldn’t keep his hands off me. It was as if all the stages of our relationship had been wrapped up into one conversation.” I rubbed the side of my neck where his mouth had once been. “He thinks he hurt me.”

  Offering me a weak smile, she tapped a finger over my heart. “Good, because he has hurt you.”
/>
  “Not like that.” I closed my eyes, my body coming back to life as the memories rained down. “He was jealous. He wanted to know if I’d been with anyone else.”

  “Please tell me you told him you had a line of guys circling the block and not that you turned into a crazy cat lady minus the cats.”

  I shook my head. “I told him the truth. And then he had some sort of meltdown and things got rough.” I sighed and let my hand fall away from his teeth marks on my neck. “I was ready for it though. Every single bit. And when I told him to stop, it was because I thought I was hurting him. Not the other way around.” I bit my bottom lip, tears welling in my eyes again. “He called me Sparrow.”

  She grinned. “Well, duh. That’s your name, silly.”

  “It used to be. But he won’t let me in. He wants me. He made that clear. He just won’t open the damn door. I could fix him. I could fix us.”

  Her face got soft as she put her palm to the door and gave it a shove. “His door’s open now.”

  My back shot straight. “Did he open that? Is he awake?”

  “Nah, I used a bobby pin to unlock it so I could check on him. He’s racked out. A marching band could come through the house right now and he wouldn’t wake up.”

  My shoulders sagged. “He doesn’t want me in there.”

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong. He doesn’t want to be in there.” She cut her gaze over my shoulder. “Ramsey never wanted to let you go, but he couldn’t stand the idea of you stuck in a different kind of prison for sixteen years, either. I’ll be honest with you. Twelve years ago, I hated it and it broke my heart to watch you mourn his loss, but I kind of understood where he was coming from. Now though? He’s lonely. You’re lonely. He won’t let you in. You won’t let go. Everyone is so damn miserable.”

  She rose to her full height and then backed toward her bedroom door, her brown gaze locked with mine as she went. “You told me once a long time ago that you would switch places with him if you could. But that still would have left the two of you in separate prisons, when all you really need to be happy is to be together. What if maybe all you have to do is join him? It’s not like your side of the bars is any better than his at this point.” She jerked her chin toward his door and then offered me another weak smile. “I love you, Thea. And there’s not a day that goes by where I don’t wish I could magically fix all of this. Unfortunately, my only super power is a bobby pin. Don’t let it go to waste.” And with that, she walked into her room and shut the door.

  I sat in the dim hallway for several minutes. Rational thought told me to get up, shut his door, and go to bed. I wasn’t going to accomplish anything that night. Even if I woke him up, he wasn’t going to miraculously drag me into his arms and kiss me breathless. It had been a long day. If he’d found rest, I didn’t want to disturb that.

  However, there was a part of me that ached to see contentment on his handsome face, even if it was only in slumber. I could sneak in, steal a moment of comfort, and then sneak out without him ever being the wiser.

  It was selfish and wrong and a clear invasion of his privacy, but as I stood up and gave his door a silent push, I was desperate enough not to care.

  The darkness stole my vision, but I knew that room like the back of my hand. The carpet crushed under my feet, the synthetic fibers sounding like tin cans in the otherwise silent room.

  As I approached the side of his bed, my heart pounded against my rib cage, partially from the fear of getting caught and partially because that was the way my body reacted when Ramsey was near. Only as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I found he wasn’t near at all.

  His midnight-blue comforter was smooth across the plush mattress, and the pillows appeared untouched. His room was always neat and tidy. Each time I’d passed his doorway that week, his bed had been made. Just not when he was supposed to be in it.

  Maybe he’d heard Nora and me talking in the hall and woken up. Curiously, I looked to the bathroom, but the door was open and the light was off.

  What the hell?

  I turned in a circle, scanning the room, wondering if he’d snuck out before I could sneak in. I’d made it almost a full three hundred and sixty degrees around when I suddenly stilled, my attention honing in on the small walk-in closet in the corner.

  Oh, God.

  My breath caught, and my stomach churned.

  No way he was in there.

  I’d made sure he had the biggest room in the house, a massive king-sized bed, and enough pillows to sleep an army. After sleeping in a crappy bed, locked in a cell for so long, he should have been relishing in the comfort.

  So there was no fucking way he was in that closet.

  I didn’t breathe as I tiptoed over and quietly twisted the handle. I put my eye to the door, peering in as though catching a glimpse would soften the blow. He never stirred as I opened the door, but I had to slap a hand over my mouth to keep the sob from escaping.

  My sweet Ramsey was sleeping soundly on the floor, his bare chest rising and falling with even breaths. He was on his side, a pillow under his head, one of the decorative throws from the couch in the den draped over his strong body. The blanket wasn’t long enough, so his bare feet hung out of the bottom.

  It was sad, heartbreakingly so. But because it was Ramsey, it was also beautiful. I couldn’t make out much, but his lips were parted and his shadowy silhouette appeared strong and rugged, like a warrior resting from battle.

  There was a small space in front of him—a place that had once belonged to me.

  In what seemed like a different life, we’d spent a lot of rainy days alternating between napping and making out, curled together on the couch while my dad had been at work. If I’d gotten up to use the bathroom or get something to eat, Ramsey would welcome me back with a sleepy mumble and a half smile. He’d jostle me until he had me in the perfect position, snug in the curve of his front, and when he’d finally sag behind me, he’d let out a content hum. It had always felt like two broken pieces clicking into place.

  Now, we were all but strangers and he was sleeping alone in a closet.

  I wanted to cry and rage at the world. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. But despite years of trying, I couldn’t change any of that. Right then, the only thing I could control was the fact that he was alone.

  I’d fought like hell, but he’d locked me out of his original prison. And dammit, I wouldn’t let him do it again.

  I didn’t care if Ramsey was sleeping in hell; if he was struggling, so was I.

  And who knew, maybe having a battle we could fight together would free us both.

  It wasn’t like it could make it any worse.

  The bright lights of the morning sun roused me to consciousness. I stretched my arms over my head, cringing when my back let out a loud crack. That was going to hurt later, but luckily, I didn’t have to work. It was Saturday and Joe had given me the day off. If only my internal clock had gotten the memo.

  Pulling the blanket up and flipping to my back, I kept my eyes closed and hoped like hell I could convince my brain to drift back to sleep.

  All at once, I bolted upright.

  It should have been pitch black in the closet. It was easier to pretend that way. It was a delicate balance between the past and the present. The carpet reminded me I wasn’t back in prison, but like a newborn in a crib, I used the confining walls to lull me into a sense of security. I’d tried that cushy bed, but it felt like it was going to swallow me whole, and as much as I liked the idea, I wasn’t going to be able to sleep through it.

  Short of the light that peeked in under the crack of the door, there should have been no sun in that closet with me. When I sat up and saw the woman wrapped in a comforter and sleeping just outside the threshold, the door being open was the least of my worries.

  Thea.

  Memories from the night before hit me like an avalanche.

  Her sexy mouth whispering my name.

  Her full
breast filling my hand.

  Her ass circling against my cock.

  And then…

  Her pleas for me to stop.

  The bite marks on her neck.

  The tears rolling down her cheeks.

  Fuck.

  My stomach soured and I sat up, scrubbing a hand over my eyes, hoping she’d disappear.

  What the hell was she doing? My teeth marks still marred her neck, yet she’d broken into my room and slept at my feet? God, if that wasn’t bad enough, she was sleeping on the floor of my fucking makeshift prison.

  She wasn’t supposed to be there. And not because of the bullshit lies I’d told her about not loving her, but because I’d spent half of my life fighting myself—the biggest demon of all—to make sure she never had to be.

  Without a second thought, I rose to my feet and scooped her off the floor in one fluid movement.

  She woke up with a squeak, hooking her arms around my neck. Her voice contained the proper amount of fear as she asked, “What are you doing?”

  “You don’t belong there,” I replied, marching to my bedroom door. “You don’t sleep on the floor, Thea. I sleep on the floor. You sleep in a fucking bed. Got it?”

  She shook her head. “You don’t belong there either. But I wanted to be with you.”

  Cradling her in front of me, I bumped her legs on the jamb as I leaned in close to twist the knob. I used my foot to kick the door open. “What the fuck for? You need a matching bruise for the other side of your neck?”

  “You didn’t hurt me. That’s not why I told you to stop. I wanted to see your face. That was all.”

  The vise in my chest eased a fraction. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Bullshit. We matter, Ramsey.”

  Right then, the only thing that mattered was getting her out of my arms. My damn peripheral vision was giving me a show down the gaping front of that flimsy tank top I swear she only wore to torture me. Gritting my teeth, I stomped from my room, turning sideways to clear the doorframe as I walked across the hall into hers. I’d never been in her room and I sure as shit wasn’t taking the time to look around while I was in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs, nature’s lie detector tenting the front.