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West should be my enemy, but instead was my obsession.
Chapter Ten
Brooklyn
I’ll never forget you, my pretty little deceiver. You are the only person who ever made me feel like maybe a heart did in fact beat inside me. Fly high, Brooklyn. Capture all your dreams and live your best life. Though I still feel the urge to end your miserable brother’s life, I know I can’t do that to you, so know this. Ben is safe. He’s being watched. And soon, he will be far from Dallas, Texas.
I’ll miss you, sweetheart. Leaving was the hardest decision of my life, but I didn’t want to get in your way. The world is yours. Happiness is right there. Should you ever need anything at all, I’m leaving you my private number. Use it.
For the rest of my life, a day won’t pass that I won’t see your amazing blue eyes and remember your beautiful body shivering underneath mine. Be happy, sweetheart.
Two weeks had passed. Ben was gone. West was gone. No reminders of either of them besides the note still on the kitchen table where West left it. Along with the memories of how he held me that night through all the tears, the shaking, and the nausea. And the never-ending, gut-wrenching sadness and loneliness inside me. Ben was injured, his jaw fractured, his ribs probably broken. He had left with no money that I knew of, and his truck barely drivable. He’d begged to stay until morning, pleaded to see a doctor, but West refused and threatened to break every bone in his body if he wasn’t packed and on his way within the hour.
After the tears dried up and the tremors ended, West told me he loved me. The next hour was spent with him in my mouth, his lips between my thighs, and ended with both of us quivering through orgasms while he emptied his release in both my pussy and my ass. I’d pleaded with him, even knowing the risks, not to use a condom. Something told me he was clean, and I hadn’t been with a man in over a year, so I was no threat. Still, he refused.
I fell asleep in his arms, only to wake up to nothing but silence. Emptiness. A void and heartache so deep and tragic that I wanted to die.
While my financial woes were over with the one million dollars deposited into my bank account, along with new furniture, sign, and state-of-the-art oven that had been delivered to the shop, none of that mattered. Bonafide Brook’s Pie Shop wasn’t as important to me now. I couldn’t stop crying. Couldn’t stop shaking or focus on baking. Insomnia had me mentally and physically drained. Nightmares plagued me when I was able to drift off for a few minutes. I couldn’t erase the sound of gunshot, the metallic tang of blood, or the rage in West’s face as he fractured Ben’s jaw. Worst of all, I couldn’t forget the way his touch made my body hum, the hot slide of his tongue between my thighs, or how quickly I’d become putty in his hands while knowing he wasn’t in it for the long run. I knew who he was and what he’d done, but it didn’t change what I felt for him. Didn’t change me wanting to know him from the inside out or care for his needs. Damn me, but knowing what I did didn’t keep me from wanting to bow at his feet and comply to his every need.
God, I was such an idiot.
I felt so lost in memories, so lost in life. I missed my mother. Worried about my brother, and God help me, but I longed for West. Ached for West. Since I was a child, owning a bakery had been my dream, my biggest fantasy.
Today, it just felt insignificant.
Chapter Eleven
West
It was 3:00 AM. While I should have been home days ago, relaxing in my own surroundings and planning my retirement, I was no surer of my future than I’d been this time yesterday. Lying in the Dallas hotel in the plush bed with its high thread-count sheets, the temperature a perfect sixty-five degrees, instead of enjoying a deep, peaceful sleep, I was wide awake, irritable, and anxious.
For so long, I’d just drifted through life, my heart void. Soulless. Emotionless. My body nothing more than a stoic statue. While knowing this vicious cycle I had lived for two decades had come to an end and that I had the rest of my life to live anywhere I chose, still it wasn’t enough.
Emptiness lingered inside me.
I missed Brooklyn. Goddamn it to hell, I missed her on such a level that I hadn’t been able to make myself leave. From the moment she smiled at me, something inside my chest felt like it was dissolving. Like something opening, pulling me in, and molding me into a different man. But as the saying goes, you get what you give. Reap what you sow. I wasn’t a good person. My fate was in the hands of Satan. Demons still lingered in my head, and the past still haunted my days and definitely my nights.
Far from religious, maybe I’d been wrong when I laughed at the concept of a greater being. Maybe that supreme power did in fact exist. Maybe it was looking down at me right this minute and laughing its fucking head off.
Maybe this was my retribution. Agony. Grief. Soul-crushing loneliness.
I squeezed my eyes shut, pleading for sleep and for this endless misery to subside. Anything was better than the ache in my loins, the grave hunger to taste her, feel her pussy around me one last time and look into those hypnotic eyes. My gut was twisting and my chest clenching with something I couldn’t describe. In forty-one years, I had never felt something like this. The urgency to better someone’s life. A desperation to bring peace and harmony and happiness. Brooklyn Nelson enamored me. Pushed every button inside me. I wanted to know her, to protect her. Goddamnit, I wanted to love her.
“Fuck! Fucking fuck!” I pushed at my temples, the pain inside my head nothing compared to what I felt in my chest. I couldn’t leave this city without knowing she was okay.
Forty-five minutes later, I was stepping out of my car and striding toward Brooklyn’s doorstep with my pulse racing and palms sweating. Not sure she would open the door and not sure I’d blame her if she didn’t, my heart felt like it almost pierced my chest when she answered.
“West.”
She looked tired and shaken but sounded like an angel. My angel.
“Hi baby. How are you?”
She blew out a loud, long breath. “How am I? How do you think, you fucking asshole? You tell me you love me, make love to me like I mean something, hold me in your arms and make me feel safe, then leave me with nothing but a note? A childish damn note? I have nothing more to say to you. You got what you wanted, so go live your life and let me live mine.”
I couldn’t help but smile. My pretty little deceiver was still so full of shit and still so incapable of fooling me with her lies. I hadn’t known her for long, but I was so damn on to her. The tremble in her voice. The sniffle of emotion. Shifting from foot to foot and rapid blinking. “I want you, baby. Fuck me to hell for not walking away when I damn well knew I should, but I love you. God help me, I’m so in love with you it hurts. I want you in my life.”
“Not happening.”
