by W Winters
Desperate to Touch
W Winters
Contents
Also by W Winters
Desperate to Touch
Authors note
Prologue
1. Seth
2. Laura
3. Seth
4. Laura
5. Seth
6. Laura
7. Seth
8. Laura
9. Seth
10. Laura
11. Seth
12. Laura
13. Seth
14. Laura
15. Seth
16. Laura
17. Seth
18. Laura
19. Laura
20. Seth
Sneak Peek at Merciless
Chapter 1
Also by W Winters
About W Winters
Also by W Winters
Merciless World
A Kiss to Tell
Possessive
Merciless
Heartless
Breathless
Endless
All He’ll Ever Be
A Kiss To Keep
A Single Glance
A Single Kiss
A Single Touch
Hard to Love
Desperate to Touch
Tempted to Kiss
Merciless World Spin Off
It’s Our Secret
Standalone Novels:
Broken
Forget Me Not
Sins and Secrets Duets:
Imperfect (Imperfect Duet book 1)
Unforgiven (Imperfect Duet book 2)
Damaged (Damaged Duet book 1)
Scarred (Damaged Duet book 2)
Willow Winters
Standalone Novels:
Tell Me To Stay
Second Chance
Knocking Boots
Promise Me
Burned Promises
Forsaken, cowritten with B. B. Hamel
Collections
Don’t Let Go
Deepen The Kiss
Valetti Crime Family Series:
Dirty Dom
His Hostage
Rough Touch
Cuffed Kiss
Bad Boy
Highest Bidder Series,
cowritten with Lauren Landish:
Bought
Sold
Owned
Given
Bad Boy Standalones,
cowritten with Lauren Landish:
Inked
Tempted
Mr. CEO
Happy reading and best wishes,
W Winters xx
Desperate to Touch
Desperate to Touch
by W Winters
I ran from him, even though my heart knew better.
Love was one thing, but survival another.
He chose a life of crime and I never wanted any of it; I only wanted him. I left when the danger bled into my life, taking more than I was willing to sacrifice.
I should have known he'd come for me. Men like him always get what they want.
The temptation in his eyes, the heat of his touch... it's all still there, but his gaze is harsher now and his grasp unrelenting.
He's not the boy I fell in love with, although pieces of what we once had are still there. I can feel it.
I know what he wants from me, and I know it comes with a steep price. I'll pay it though, if for no other reason than to touch him again. Just once more.
I'll close my eyes and forget about the risks that come with this life and with him. I only hope he doesn't do the same.
Desperate to Touch is book 2 in a series. Hard to Love must be read first.
Authors note
“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.”
― Stephen King
Prologue
Laura
The first year Seth moved to the East Coast, years ago
The journal in my hand is thick and the edge of its pages are worn. As though she didn’t just write in its pages daily, but instead read and reread the scribbled confessions of the past three years constantly. The spine itself is cracked and it divides the journal in two.
Guilt riddles its way into my thoughts. I shouldn’t be reading a patient’s journal, not when she only gave it to me because I told her I’d fix it for her. She trusted me because I’m her nurse. I’m supposed to help Delilah and take care of her.
The poor woman who lives on pills during the day and is haunted by nightmares when the sun sets gave me all her secrets. I know I shouldn’t take it, but the second half of the journal starts with the description of a barn Marcus took her to.
Marcus. Just seeing his name chills me down to my bones. I don’t even realize that I’ve stopped moving, breathing, that I’ve simply halted in the middle of the narrow hall until a sweet new resident asks me if I’m okay. I think her name is Bethany.
“Fine,” I tell her and force a smile, although the scribbled name, Marcus, lingers in my mind. The whispered hiss, Marcus, repeats itself faster and faster as I make my way to the office to read what she wrote about him. The Rockford Center deals with mental health, so naturally, drugs and violence are a conversation starter. Many of my patients talk about Marcus. Marcus and the Cross brothers. Recently, Seth King is a name that’s going around too. I have to close my eyes, swallowing thickly as I shut the door to the dark office, leaning my back against it and simply trying to breathe.
Seth King, the man I loved on the other side of the country. The man I ran away from. He gave me time, but I knew he’d come for me. It’s been a week since I first heard he was here, only miles from me, and I’ve been praying. I begged God to give me a sign, to tell me what to do. Opening my eyes, I stare down at the notebook. My salvation.
I photocopied every page of Delilah’s journal, hiding in the small back office of the Rockford Center. I can still remember how anxious I was and how heat smothered every inch of my skin. Knowing I could be fired instantly, I still had to do it. I’d only just started working at the center, my first job as a nurse. I had to do whatever it took to survive. I suppose I’d been saying that a lot back then.
That journal was my leverage for when Seth inevitably came for me. Filled with multiple entries all about Marcus, the boogeyman, the Grim Reaper. A faceless villain who made deals in back alleys, running the streets around these parts, battling for power along with the Cross brothers. Unlike Carter Cross and his brothers, no one knows who Marcus is. They’ve never seen his face, but his signature power plays and ruthless reputation are notorious.
I thought that if Seth came for me demanding the money I stole, I’d give him the copies. I thought maybe it would be of value to him because I knew he came to work with the Irish mob who ruled this part of the East Coast, a.k.a. the Cross brothers. And they’d give anything to uncover any details on their faceless nemesis, Marcus, and his secrets.
They were all in the worn journal. This woman Delilah, my patient, had seen him. Felt him. She loved Marcus. She had a single journal when she was first admitted. It described details of where they met and what he wanted with her. It was leverage. Several years have passed; my patient’s collection has grown as she’s come in and out of the Rockford Center, when her mental state is too harmful to be away from the help we give her. She has a journal for every year, five years now, and I never stopped photocopying them. I could give Seth information on Marcus, in hopes that he wouldn’t hold our past against me.
I kept waiting and waiting for Seth to come for me. Didn’t he know he’d have to be the one to make the first move? I wouldn’t even be able to look h
im in the eyes or say his name out loud.
Seth King.
Years came and went yet he never approached me. It wasn’t relief I felt, it was like a prolonged mourning. Maybe he wanted me to feel his presence, to know I couldn’t have him. I remember the first night that thought came to me, and how hard I sobbed against my pillow at the thought. I’d take my punishment; I deserved it.
Fate is a cruel sorceress, but this time I love her. Because last night, I saw him. I spoke to him. He called me Babygirl and even through the fear, I want him to say it again.
Seth
She still doesn’t know how badly she fucked me over.
I try to keep that in mind as I wait for Laura. Waiting for her is all I’ve done since she said good night two weeks ago. Each hour has felt like an eternity. She whispered it when she opened the back door of my car, sliding out with tears running down her cheeks. She never cried in the open; she hated the tears. “Useless” is what she used to mutter when she was on the verge of tears.
Back then I always held her while she let it all out. That night, fourteen days ago, I merely watched as she stayed as silent as she could, wiping the tears from her cheek. Maybe that’s why she whispered “good night”—she didn’t trust herself to speak too loud or else I’d realize she was crying.
I already knew though. She should know better than to think she can hide from me.
If she thinks I don’t know how much it hurts, she’s dead wrong.
The tick of the clock in Jase’s office doesn’t stop. It reminds me that I’m getting closer to seeing her again. She’s to meet me, to come prepared to pay for the damages. She doesn’t know though, just how much she fucked me over.
“Anything else on Walsh?” Jase questions his brother, Declan, as I sit in the corner chair, a dark leather wingback. I listen to the two of them go over the details Declan’s been able to gather on the crooked cop hell-bent on revenge against the man known as Marcus. Only half my attention is on them. Until Declan says something about pitting the two of them against one another.
For a moment, I’m torn from my obsessive thoughts of seeing Laura tonight. The thoughts have been coming and going throughout the day. In the dark of night, alone in my bed with nothing but the memories of her, not a damn thing could get through to me. Certainly not sleep.
“Seth, what do you think?” Jase asks me, rolling up the sleeves of his crisp white dress shirt. Watching him lean back against his chair, the tailored suit jacket draped behind him, I’m reminded that I have shit to do other than deal with the woman who broke what semblance of a heart I had.
“I think being between the two of them is a piss-poor place to be,” I say, speaking up so Declan can hear me from where he is on the other side of the expansive office. His head is down as he types on the keys of his sleek laptop. It’s state of the art and expensive as fuck with all the software loaded onto it. He’s constantly searching for more information on Cody Walsh, the cop and former FBI agent who came to this town wreaking havoc.
“It would be easier if Walsh wasn’t blackmailing us to help him find Marcus.”
“It’s not like we can give him Marcus anyway. He’ll learn that it’s not that easy,” I comment but the foresight of what will happen along the way, and more importantly, after, breeds a disdain for the scheming cop. Months of surveillance on Marcus’s men have given us nothing but a list of men who work for the man. Nothing about him in particular. We don’t have a damn thing to give Walsh.
“Then how does him blackmailing us play out?” Jase’s unspoken concerns are read easily with the worry in his expression. If we can’t help Officer Walsh find Marcus, he could turn in the evidence he has on Jase and me. Then we’re fucked.
“We need to get something on Walsh. We can’t trust that he doesn’t have backups of the tapes. We could bury ourselves helping him and in the end, he’d turn us in anyway.”
“I agree with Declan,” I say as I nod solemnly. My voice is even and calm. The threat of going away for murder is there... but all I can focus on is Laura, and making her sweet ass pay for leaving me.
“Even if Walsh does turn in the evidence, we have ways to get around a conviction,” Jase says and his menacing glare moves to the lit fireplace on the right side of the room. “As soon as we’re able, I want him dead.”
I used to feel chills at the thought of murder. They would climb up my spine, sending a freezing cold deeper into my blood as they crept their way up. Not anymore, though. It’s been quite some time since I’ve felt any remorse or apprehension at the depravity I engage in.
“It must be done,” I agree.
“When the time comes, we burn his house down, raid his office and get any evidence you can find.”
“His car too,” Declan adds. “He has PO Boxes in the upper east. Those need to be ransacked as well. All three of them.”
“What the hell is he doing with those?” A crease settles deep between my brow.
“Maybe that’s where he stores his evidence?” Jase questions, and a hopeful glint resurrects itself in his dark gaze. “Former FBI agents have their quirks and habits. We need to learn every single one of this prick’s.”
I only nod. There’s no telling why Walsh does what he does. He seems to work alone, but the more we learn, the more is amiss. The evidence in his possession could put us away for murder. I’m not willing to allow that. Not when I just got Laura back.
No fucking way is some crooked cop getting in the way of my plans. I wish I had my crew here. For the first time in years, I feel like I truly need them. Maybe it’s because Laura’s back. Or maybe it’s because the danger has a tighter grip around my throat. They’re on the other side of the country, though. I haven’t spoken to them in a long damn time.
I offer my suggestion and say, “We can put some men on the post office. See how often he goes to the PO Boxes, if ever.”
“Agreed,” Declan chimes in. “We need to watch him day and night. I can’t find shit on him from the last three years and before that he was an agent so I don’t trust it.”
The ticking of the clock sounds with the crackling of wood and hiss of the fire as the three of us consider our reality. We’re dealing with two pricks who have information on us, yet we’re lacking when it comes to knowledge about them.
“All of our resources are going toward watching the army of a ghost,” Jase says, referring to Marcus’s men, “and to a fucking cop who could bring us down.”
“We’ll take care of it,” I comment evenly and reassuringly, joining Jase to stare at the fire. Instead of seeing a cocked trigger, or the match that would cause an explosion, I see blue eyes in the flames. Parted lips. I swear I can hear Laura’s moan.
“You all right, Seth?” The question doesn’t come from Jase or from Declan. The office door creaks open as Carter steps in, his footsteps heavy as he enters.
“Fine,” I answer Carter Cross, the oldest brother and rightful leader of this crew. His ruthlessness and reputation precede him.
He murmurs low and then takes in each of his brothers. “I think we should reconsider Marcus.”
“Fuck Marcus.” Jase’s voice is harsh as he speaks. Marcus is the one who gave the cop the leverage. The bastard set us up. Walsh isn’t the only one who wants to take Marcus down.
Carter merely smirks, the only hint of humor that’s graced this office for months. He’s taller than his brothers. Broader shoulders too with an air about him that’s deadly. Jase could charm anyone; he’s handsome and well spoken. Declan’s quiet and smiles easily enough. Carter’s harder, brutal. Even his jawline is harsh. Recently though, since he’s found Aria, a different side of him is showing.
“Any unspoken truce we had with Marcus is gone,” Jase continues, his anger getting the best of him. “He fucked with us on a personal level. He stole our supply, he captured—”
“All in the past. The enemy of our enemy is our friend.”
“Which one, brother?” Jase’s gaze narrows. His animosity for the
two men shows without even the thinnest veil to hide behind. “You’d choose Marcus over Walsh? When Marcus is the one who set us up! He gave us over to Walsh when we did nothing to him. He’s a traitor. I won’t rethink a damn thing.”
“Your emotions are getting the best of you.” Carter’s lack of emotion, his logical thinking combined with unforgiving lethal force, is what made the Cross brothers what they are. If nothing else, I admire it.
My gaze moves slowly between the two brothers, as does Declan’s. I understand Jase’s anger and his fear.
“What would you have us do?” Jase questions. Their dark gazes meet, and neither softens. Carter’s hand falls in the pocket of his crisp black suit as he seems to debate an answer.
“Surveillance will take time. Do we have it?” he asks.
“Yes,” Declan speaks up, cracking the tension but not breaking it. In gray slacks and a white Henley, Declan’s attire makes him stand out from his brothers. He always does though. But it’s his quiet, watchful nature that allows him to blend in with crowds. He doesn’t have the same intensity about him that Jase and Carter do. At least not in public. I’ve seen him though. I’ve seen the real him and it’s nothing like the man on the other side of the office.
