“Fuck me? My life has abruptly come to a stop, and you of all people say fuck you, Lane! I took care of you when you needed me the most, and you say fuck you, Lane! You have a good life now, the wife, the kid, the love I’ve always thought you deserved, and you say fuck you, Lane! No. Fuck you, Logan. You can take this business, our brotherhood, and shove it up your righteous ass!”
The force of my wrath bangs on my ribs to unleash. I want to kill someone again. Beat them until they are unrecognizable.
“That’s right, I said it. I’ll repeat it. Fuck you, Lane.” His voice cracks, eyes peering at me intently.
A low growl rumbles in my chest, shooting straight out of my mouth. I’m a second away from punching him in the chest so he can feel how it is to have someone talk enough bullshit that it yanks out your heart.
Instantly, my fist flies with all the rage boiling over. I clock him in the cheek just as he turns his head. He stumbles backward, shakes his head, and smiles.
The asshole smiles.
“There he is, my brother who would beat a man’s ass if he so much as looked at a woman at the club after she’d say no. There he is, the man I have more respect for than anyone else. Get pissed off, hit me, beat my ass, but don’t you dare hold that shit inside.”
I blink—the confusion as to where Logan all of a sudden attacked me flaps in the air like a surrendering white flag.
His reason.
It’s not funny. There’s not one damn thing to laugh at, but yet I feel like I could. Logan knows me well enough to push my buttons better than anyone.
This is where not only our looks are alike, so are we. When someone you care about traps inside themselves. You’ll push until they break free.
That’s what I hope Sienna soon realizes I was trying to do for her. That’s what Logan is doing for me.
I should deck him in the face again and laugh while doing it.
He moves his jaw back and forth, eyes digging deep into mine.
“You’re not quite back to yourself, yet are you? Where’s my brother who killed a man the other day? My brother, who gave up everything for his daughter? The same man who helped me put Seth to sleep while he cried for our mother? Where is he? He’s in there hiding underneath guilt. I’m pulling him out before that poison eats him from the inside out. You want to cry, then right here is a shoulder. I know this is gutting you. I’m so damn sorry you are going through hell.”
Something black rises inside of me, circulating with the range of emotions I can’t contain. That’s when I break. I sag into Logan. His arms circle me, and I cry. Fuck, I cry until I’m ripping at my hair and seeing red.
“I’m torn apart, Logan. Luca is my son. My flesh and blood. Half of Sienna and me. What do I do if he never comes home? What do I do?” My voice drops into a suffocating whisper.
A beg.
A plea.
“You fight. You fight through every emotion. You beat those bad ones down before they pull you under. If they are more than you can take, then you come to me, and I will battle with you. You stay strong for a woman who needs it. I’m here. I’m right fucking here, brother. Do you hear me?”
I hear him loud and clear.
I cave to the agony, balling my fists into his shirt, taking that shoulder, and I weep.
I surrender to the guilt, the shame, and everything I can’t do to bring Luca back and make Sienna’s pain go away.
Chapter Thirteen
Sienna
My hand pauses above the waistband of my panties as the hero in the book I’m reading grabs hold of his cock and thrusts into the heroine. It’s been a long time since I’ve become this wired with an out of control need to touch myself. And honestly, it doesn’t have a thing to do with how hot this book is.
Desire. It’s slipping right through me, hitting those spots that have been dead for years.
The passion of wanting Lane winds around my legs and up my spine when I remember the way he used to touch me everywhere. We might have been young, but that man knew how to work my body. His hands and fingers, his tongue, worshipped me with purpose, with one mission in mind. To draw as many orgasms out of me as he could before he’d fuck me like an uncaged animal.
My body felt like it was the torch to his striking match.
The things he’d whisper he wanted to do to me, then ask me to voice when we were younger I had no problem slipping them right off my tongue.
Now the man has me rattled. Shaken my world, knocking my knees and rocking the ground every time I try to stand.
“Damn it,” I yell, chest alive with a surge of lust.
Holding the book close to my face, I grip the sheet with the other, refusing to touch myself as I focus on the words, letting them sink into me. Nothing I do will satisfy me except the man I want badly anyway.
God, please don’t let this come back and hurt me. I’ve let him strip me completely bare. Not just for sex. My heart. I’ve opened it wide for him once again. Allowed it to be gutted open. I won’t survive the pain this time. I know I won’t. He’s come on strong. Like a hurricane barreling through my body. Full force and weighing me down.
I’ve grieved for this man for far too long. The heartache over losing him has followed me through the years. I might have tried to convince myself that I didn’t love him, might have tried pushing thoughts of him away. The truth is, he’s a part of me. Always has been, forever will be ingrained in my soul.
“Fuck me, please.”
His eyes snap to mine. With an underlying possessiveness scattering across his face, he pulls out and plows back in. Pleasure spears through my veins, thrumming my heart and pulling at those strings that have been strung taut and tight between us. I want them to break. To set us free from our pasts, pushing forward with a hefty shove.
“Fuck, you feel good.” His tone is hard and worshipful. It sets me soaring.
Freedom to love him, to finally be with him within my reach, I’m grasping onto it and never letting go.
My body goes languid, succumbing to him as he slams into me over and over with raw, unbridled recklessness. Primal and fierce, his hands digging into my thighs, eyes never straying from mine as he takes complete control and loves me as he promised.
“Fucking Christ, you are perfect. Years. So many years I’ve waited for this. I’ve wanted you so fucking bad. Swear to God, it’s always been you.”
The problem between my thighs intensifies as the lines in the book become blurry. I could easily take care of it for now. It would come back the minute my thoughts drift to Lane again and how good it would feel to have him touch me with those big hands. To remind me of the pleasurable wicked things he used to do.
I want Lane to rip me apart. Drive me to the brink again and again before he plunges inside and fucks me in more ways than one.
I want to run to him and grasp hold to every word he’s said. To start over.
I slam the book closed, climb out of bed, so confused—that intensity between right and wrong swelling.
Grabbing my phone from my pillow, I call Victoria, clutching the phone to my ear. I should have never called to tell her what a mess I was after Lane left my office. Then two days later, I receive a delivery from her containing a box of books, telling me they’ll not only help me pass the time of my lonely nights but getting lost in a book is good for the soul.
So like the lonely woman I am. More so now that my father left the other day to God knows where, I pulled one out, shook my head when I saw the sexy muscular man on the cover, and without reading the blurb, I went in blind knowing full well there’d be sex.
“God, how could I think I could handle reading something like that when the man has me riled up.” I can’t continue like this.
I pace as I listen to the line ring and ring. I’m preparing to ream her butt out over voicemail when she answers.
“Sienna, is everything okay?” she asks worriedly.
“Not by a long shot. Should I thank you for the books or clobber you over the head with one th
e next time I see you? If I look at the rest of them, are they going to be second chance emotional romances too? You are a traitor friend,” I say, not taking a breath before continuing. “You of all people know I’m barely holding it together. When Joseph calls—”
“Woah. Slow down and shut it, Sienna,” she cuts me off, anger bristling from her high pitch. “I sent them to make you realize it’s okay to hold on to what you’re feeling and grab onto something else. You have to stop agonizing over when Joseph calls or when Joseph does this or that. Listen to me for once, please. I’m begging you to open both your mind and heart and not only hear me. Hear Lane too.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, drawing in a deep breath. Lane’s not even here, and I can hear him. His deep voice laced with so much compassion, so much heartache. So much assurance that I can’t think straight. I know he cares about me. I could see it in the way he was watching me, with those parting words of wanting my heart more than anything else. I can hear the wheels in Victoria’s head spinning too.
Maybe reading that book was what I needed to kick my ass in gear. To step over the line and give my all to the man who won’t stop convincing me, he’ll do whatever it takes to bring me back to life.
“I’ll listen, you have to listen to me too. I’ll run back to Joseph if he calls. I will sneak away if that’s what it takes. It will break my heart into a million pieces if I get attached to Lexi and her to me. The mere thought of hurting that little girl.”
“If anyone faults you for that then they aren’t worthy of your spit. If you let go and give into Lane, the two of you can figure things out together. You can’t go on living like this. You have to trust your family that they will find Joseph. If he calls, then you tell someone. Trust someone other than me, Sienna. You say you do, but do you really?”
My heart thunders in a faltering ache.
“I do trust them. It’s me, I don’t.”
“Why? You give me a good reason why you don’t trust yourself? Using the excuse you’d go back to Joseph isn’t good enough anymore. We’d all do it if that we’re the only choice we had.”
Chaos rages through me like a blistering fire.
Silence fills my bedroom—cat grasping hold of my tongue.
“That’s what I thought. You can’t. Stop being afraid of that man who abused you for years. He might have Luca, but he will be found. I’ve never been thankful my father is a killer until Joseph took Luca. That prick will get what’s coming to him. You have to let go.”
I start shaking, searching deep inside for the lost woman I used to be. My chest goes tight. Darkness arrives leaving me dangling somewhere between the woman who was hanging on for her and her son’s lives, and the real me—the one who would fight for her freedom and do everything to get her son back with the man she wants by her side.
“I’m not going to say you deserve to be happy, not when deep down, you know you do. What is it you want, Sienna? What is your heart telling you to do? If you tell me you’re worried about Lexi and Lane again, I’ll be on a plane to set you straight. Stop with the excuses.” I can hear how determined she is for me to find happiness flooding from her pores.
“While I’m on a roll, I may as well plant the same bug in your ear as I did the other day when you went on about only spending hours with Lane in the last decade. So damn what. You owe no one an explanation for anything you do. Not anymore. Get to know Lane again. Have the best sex of your life while doing it. You are doing nothing wrong. Don’t you dare go into how unfair it would be for you to be happy, not when I know for a fact that man cares for you more than you realize. More than I ever thought a Mitchell could.” She speaks so calmly and quietly, which shocks me as I compare it to her hard, truthful words.
Victoria and I have been there for one another through thick and thin. She’s my rock and knows me better than anyone else. We’ve cried so many tears on one another’s shoulders over me as well as her. Years ago, I tried to convince her to go to her parents after being bullied in school. She laughed through self-conscious tears when she’d answer that her dad would probably kill them if she did, and her mom would screech at the top of her lungs that he would not.
She’s a beautiful woman on the inside and out. She’s slightly on the curvy side and let me tell you, some of the things she repeated back to me those mean teenagers said were worse than cruel.
We’d cry and cry when she’d help me cover up my bruises, begging me to let her tell Aidan what was going on in my home. I didn’t listen then, but I hear now. It’s blaring in my ears.
I love Victoria. Right here, though, I wish she was standing in front of me so I could yell and scream at her for keeping a secret from me.
“You know, only my best friend would tell me to pull my head out of my ass without coming out and saying it. Only my best friend would keep something she thought was too hard for me to handle. What do you mean by fact? How long have you been talking to Lane?” I blurt, knowing full well she has.
“Right, and only your best friend would say, I’m not telling you a thing until you answer me.”
I inhale and exhale deeply. Not because I’m hesitating—but once I say it out loud, there’d be no turning back. I’ll jump in my car and admit it to Lane, and he’ll never let me go.
“I’m going to say what you don’t want to hear. There’s not just me to consider anymore. That’s what I’m more afraid of than anything else.”
“And you have every reason to be. The crazy son of a bitch tried to break you, but he didn’t. You are still standing, and let me say this. You say you trust Lane. Why aren’t you acting on that trust and let yourself go to him? The man isn’t going to let anyone near Lexi or anyone he cares about, including you. He told you as much. Quit trying to convince yourself you don’t deserve that man.” God, she sounds like Lane.
I squeeze the phone as if it could relieve some of the stress out of me and replace it with belief.
“I’m conflicted, confused. I have all these feelings swinging back and forth. I’m nervous and unprepared.”
I’m still trying to wrap my head around him, not being with a woman in years. Lane is an attractive man, he probably had women throw themselves at him, and the fact he didn’t even give them a thought further proves how devoted he can be.
I didn’t share that with Victoria. It made me realize how loyal and faithful to his word he is. It has me wanting him all the more.
“Most of those feelings are nothing new to you. They are enhanced for valuable reasons by Lane as they should be. I’d think Joseph would have broken you if you stopped caring about others, Sienna. As far as confused, I can’t help you there. You need to jump into what Lane is offering to rid yourself of it. Loving the man is nothing new to you either. It might not be as strong as it was. It’s there, though, and by the sounds of it, he’s right there with you. You might have abruptly walked into Joseph’s arms, Sienna. You never walked away from loving Lane. It makes no sense, but when has anything when it comes to love.”
“When did you become so wise with relationships?” She hasn’t dated in years. She claims not to have the time. There’s more to it, but whenever we’d get on the subject, she’d tell me how busy she’s been trying to make it on her own as a designer. She refuses to borrow what she calls blood money from her parents. If there ever was a person to love their family with her whole heart and hate what they do, it’s Victoria Hughes.
“It’s my turn to tell you something you don’t want to hear. If you hang up on me, I’ll drop everything I’m doing and be down there before the sun rises.” I’m uncomfortable with that opening sentence. It stirs flapping wings of frantic low in my stomach.
“You’ve told me plenty that I didn’t want to hear. I needed it, though.” Sinking onto my bed, I lean against the headboard, drawing my knees to my chest.
“Yeah, well, a little nudge now and then doesn’t hurt anyone. Listen to me good, Sienna. Take this straight to your heart and keep it tucked in there. Until Luca comes home,
there won’t be a day where you won’t think of him. I’m not telling you to give up on hope. It could be years before he comes back. I believe he will. No matter what is happening to him right now, that boy has been raised by you. He’s going to need his strong, loving mother when he comes home. Let him come home to the woman you were the night you left.”
She’s right. I’ve known it all along. To admit it could be a day, a year, or more before I have Luca back is something I’ve shoved so far back in my mind. I have to leave it there, or I’ll never take a step forward again.
“I love you, Sienna, and no one on this earth, in my opinion, deserves to be treated like a queen than you. You are royalty in your own right, but if you don’t climb out of the grave Joseph tried burying you in, there will be nothing left of you when Luca does come home. Is that what you want for him? Is that what Luca would wish for you? After all these years separating you and Lane, that man left his heart at your feet. Give him yours and have him fight through this with you. Now, yes, I’ve talked to Lane. He’s been calling to ask how you are.”
My entire body breaks out in goosebumps, all my dreams of being with Lane again float to the surface of the murky waters in my mind, ready to drown my fears.
To battle and win until the end.
“I’m going to ask you one more time, Sienna, and your ass better be honest with me. What. Do. You. Want?”
“I want Lane.”
Chapter Fourteen
Lane
At the cutting of headlights, I swing open the front door to a stunning vision I knew was heading my way after security informed me a minute ago. As I watch her round the front of her car, biting that plump bottom lip, creamy white skin glowing from the lights lining my driveway, each step she takes sends a current through the air.
It strikes me in the chest.
The woman is a fantasy come to life in silk sleep pants, a plain white t-shirt with no bra—those mouth-watering nipples on full display.
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