“Fine,” I grumbled. “I’m going to give you the damn speech.”
“Huh?” Her head snapped up. “What speech?”
“The speech.” I cleared my throat and reached across the table, engulfing her hand in mine. “Tracey, you’re perfect.”
“Chase?” She tried to pull her hand away but I gripped it harder.
“Choose me. Pick me,” I whispered. “I’m better for you… plus Nixon’s… too tall.”
“He’s too tall?”
“And buff. Do you really want a guy that looks that scary?” I shook my head. “Not gonna happen. So choose me. Be with me. Let me love you, let me protect you, let me honor you. Let me screw your brains out.”
“Ass.” She cracked a smile.
At least she smiled. I cleared my throat and released her hand. Walking over to her side of the table, I pulled her to her feet and tilted her chin toward me.
“I’ll keep you safe.”
“I’m not worried about my safety.”
“I’ll kiss you better.”
“Again, not worried about kisses.”
I sighed and with a shrug leaned in until our lips were inches from touching. Such sweet, painful agony. “Here’s the thing…”—my bottom lip grazed hers—“Kisses are exactly what you should be worried about.”
“Why?” She exhaled. Her top lip trembled as air escaped through her mouth.
“All it takes is one kiss. One kiss can save you. One kiss can ruin you for life. And my kisses? They better ruin you, Trace. Because if they don’t, then I’m clearly not doing a good enough job, and let’s be honest—I can’t really act to save my life, so my kisses are exactly what you should be worried about.” I trailed my finger over her lips. “Because my kisses are real—they mean a hell of a lot more than yours, and from here on out—I’m not holding back.”
I kissed her.
Not hard.
It probably didn’t even look like a kiss. Our lips touched for the briefest of moments, but in that short connection of our mouths meeting, of exchanging the same air, I made a choice.
To share my soul with her. To be her everything—even if it meant I was going to get nothing in return—because I’d been given permission to do so—I decided I was going to steal her. No longer was it betrayal—it was survival.
Trace covered her mouth with a shaking hand and closed her eyes. “We should probably go to class.”
Her cheeks were stained with a pretty blush. I nodded and grabbed her hand. I didn’t ask for permission, I didn’t need it. As far as I was concerned, she was mine to protect, mine to save, and mine to take. I was making it real—because to me it was.
“Chase, I—” Trace released my hand and then examined her own, as if it had somehow sprouted a face since coming into contact with my person. “I um…”
“Spit it out, Trace, or we’re going to be late,” I joked.
“I don’t know.” She sighed. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
Without thinking, I tugged her arm and walked toward one of the large oak trees.
“I’m not him.” I trapped her body with mine, noting how every time our bodies came into contact she literally trembled against me. “Look at me.”
Her eyes flickered open. Torn. She was torn, and she needed to be sure.
“You can do this,” I whispered hoarsely. “Because you love Nixon. Right?”
She looked away. Was that uncertainty speaking or just my own lame hope that she felt the exact same tug in the pit of her stomach that I did? Maybe it was ridiculous to wish for another person to feel as horrible as you did—but it’s what I wanted. I was sick for her, and I wanted her to feel the same way for me.
“Right,” she finally answered with a sigh. “But Chase… I feel like I’m betraying both of you. When I’m with him, I think of you. I wonder how you are, I worry about you, I love you—you know that. And when I’m with you… it hurts, it hurts so damn bad because it’s like I’m taking a knife to his heart every time it’s your touch instead of his.”
“Well damn,” I chuckled to myself. I mean, really, what else was I supposed to do? Cry?
“What?” She pushed against my chest. “This is serious. Why are you laughing?”
I shrugged. “It was a nice speech.”
“Thanks but—”
“I’m gonna beat it, so watch out.” I silenced her with my lips. She tasted like mint and coffee. Tenderly, I coaxed her mouth open with my tongue. Her mouth was like velvet—every single damn part of my body was hit with adrenaline—so hard in fact that I braced my hand against the tree, allowing my body to push against hers.
“Don’t fight it,” I mumbled across her lips. “For once, just stop thinking, and don’t fight it, Trace. It’s just you and me. There is no mafia, nobody’s out to kill us, and we aren’t putting on a show. We’re making out, behind a tree, at college, like normal college students do.” I gripped her hands and helped her wrap her arms around my neck and I pushed her a bit harder against the tree. The feel of her body pressed against mine almost made me pass out. I groaned as she began playing with my hair and then her tongue was in my mouth.
In my mouth.
Her hands. In my hair.
Her body against mine.
We broke apart. Her eyes weren’t condemning, she didn’t freak out. Instead, they softened as she laughed. “That was a damn good speech.”
Grinning, I pulled her into my embrace and kissed her forehead. “And people say I’m all action, no talk.”
“Um, no.” Trace laughed against my chest. “People say you get too much action. There’s a difference, Chase.”
“Details.” I sighed and kissed her forehead again. It was like I couldn’t stop myself. It felt so real, so right.
“Thanks,” she sighed. “For saying all those things, for being so… great. I swear I’m probably the last person you want to have to be with for all of this.”
My smile faded. “What do you mean?”
“Admit it.” She punched me in the arm. “I’m going to kill your game for the rest of the year if people think we’re together.”
I tripped as I backed away from her. Was she shitting me? She thought I was seriously just saying those things to say them?
“No wonder girls fall all over themselves for you, Chase Winter. You kiss like a god and you make girls forget you’re a player.”
Shit. Well played, Trace. Well played. There went that damn friend-zone shield she was so fond of.
“Class?” She gripped my hand first this time.
“Um, sure, yeah. Let’s go to class.” And pray I didn’t pass out from exhaustion and lust before we got there.
Chapter Twenty-three
Nixon
I was still reeling from my encounter with Trace and Mrs. Butterworth that morning. Damn, I’d never look at syrup the same again.
Unfortunate that Tex would probably never let me live it down, either. The bastard. I walked across campus to the Space and unlocked the door to the warehouse.
Blood was caked on Phoenix’s face from our last meeting. You’d think his expression would be less smug, but if anything it got worse. I pulled up a chair and sighed.
“So…” I popped my knuckles. “Sleep well?”
“Like a baby.”
“You ready to talk yet?”
“No.”
“Thought so.” My knees cracked as I got to my feet and slowly walked away from Phoenix. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my knife. The light from the one window caught the edge of it, making it shimmer in the otherwise dark room. “What is your life worth to you?”
“Nothing. Either way I’m dead.”
I nodded. “What if I tell you I’ll put you into hiding? I’d do it, you know. Not because I’m particularly fond of you, but because I need to know what the hell is going on and you seem to be the only one stupid enough to rat people out to save your own damn hide.”
“True.” Phoenix smirked. “But this is bigger than you, Nixon. It’s bigger than us.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I slammed the knife down onto the table.
“It’s not even about us. It’s about them; it’s about him and what he did. Shit, you don’t even know what I know. Believe me, if you did, you wouldn’t trust Chase as far as you could throw him.”
“Chase?” I shook my head. “What the hell does Chase have to do with anything?”
“He has everything to do with it. Every damn thing goes back to your family. The Abandonatos. How many people do you think… died to protect the secret? Hmm? Your father took it to his grave; your mother, bless her heart, never got a chance to tell you the truth; and now the one person who knows…”—he chuckled and winked—“won’t tell a soul.”
“How do I know what you’re saying is even true? And why the hell would someone be stupid enough to tell you?”
“I wasn’t told. I overheard.”
“From?”
“Nope,” Phoenix laughed. “Does it kill you that I know something you don’t? That your family’s dirty little laundry is going to die right along with me? Maybe that’s a good thing. We don’t want to mess with the way the family does things.”
“I’ll kill them all,” I said softly. “Every last one of your family members. I’ll kill them.”
“Do it. I dare you.”
“You shouldn’t encourage me. I’m teetering on the edge of insanity right now.”
Phoenix shrugged. “First, the Nicolosi family would find out you’ve been offing my family members. Second, it’s almost impossible to find all of them, unless you plan on hacking our accounts and seeing where we send payments in order to buy silence. You see, in our family, money talks… probably because it’s scarce.”
I grinned and stuffed the knife back in my pocket. “Thanks, Phoenix. Great doing business with you.”
His smile fell.
“I’ll send Tex over to throw a bucket of water onto your face so you can clean up a bit. Wouldn’t want any of those cuts getting infected.”
“I could die and you’d probably smile while performing my eulogy.” Phoenix spat.
I paused, my back to him as I sighed. “You’re wrong. You were one of my best friends. When my dad beat me, you told me not to cry. When I told you I wanted to kill him, you said you’d get me a gun. When Trace was taken from me, you told me she’d come back. And now? Now all I see is my ex-best friend.” I turned around and faced him. “You look like the Phoenix I grew up with, you sound like him; hell, you’ve always walked around like the world owed you something. I just don’t know how the hell we got from there to here. I never wanted this. I would have never chosen this for either of us.”