Page 21 of Untamed Heart

Heat and anger and something that looked a hell of a lot like determination swirled in the deep blue of his eyes as he scowled down at me. “You think that fucking rose on your back means I’m gone, you’re dead wrong, baby. You might have tried to erase me, but I’m still there, underneath. All you managed to do was hide me, but mark my words, I’ll get back to where I belong no matter how much you fight me.”

I sneered, sliding my mask into place so he could no longer see how badly he still affected me. “Oh yeah, and where is it you think you belong?”

He didn’t hesitate to bring his hand up and rest it against my sternum. Right over my rapidly-beating heart. “I belong right here, baby.”

“Bullshit,” I spat, reaching for bravado as I felt that wall around my heart take a direct hit. “That hasn’t been yours in a very long time.” I could tell from the way one corner of his mouth started to curl upward that he didn’t believe me, so I grabbed hold of the first thing that popped into my head to burst his bubble. “You’ve been out of my life longer than you were in it, Roe. You’ve made what we had back then into something bigger than it was.”

I didn’t expect the lance of fire that shot through my chest as soon as the last word passed my lips. Saying that lie out loud actually caused me physical pain, and from the way Roe jerked back like I hit him, it had the same effect on him. But he didn’t let go. Instead, he stepped in, closing the last few inches of space between us, leaned in so close he was the only thing I could see.

“You want to feed yourself that shit, you go ahead, but I know the truth. And I’ll spend every waking hour reminding you if that’s what it takes. See, when you kissed me, you made yourself mine, and I’ll be damned if I let you walk away from me a second time.”

My top lip curled up in disgust that I unfortunately didn’t feel. But as they say, fake it ’til you make it, right? “Why? You had no problem with it the last time.”

I knew my blow landed as planned when he winced. Then I watched as he shook it off and pinned that look of determination back into place. “You want to hurt me because I hurt you, go for it. I’ll take it because I earned it. But let me make one thing perfectly clear.” His thumb tipped my head back even farther. I wasn’t short by any means, but Roe always managed to make me feel small. And he’d only managed to getbiggeras the years passed. “You need to get off while you’re in town, I’m the one who’ll do it. Theonlyone.” His cinnamon scented breath whispered past my heated cheeks as he warned, “You try giving what belongs to me to another man, whatever I end up doing to him will be on your hands.”

My lips parted on a gasp, a shiver working down my spine as the earnestness staring back at me. He wasn’t joking. Not one little bit. “You can’t be serious,” I yelped. “You’re threatening me?”

“Not a threat, Honeybee. A promise. You try playing games with a man like me, you suffer the consequences.”

Ignoring the rush of heat that flooded through me, forcing my nipples into hard peaks and dampening my panties, I jerked my chin from his hold and took a single step backward, bumping into the open door and making it bounce off the wall. “Stop calling me that,” I gritted out, clenching my hands into fists down at my sides. “And get the hell out of my room. I’ll be perfectly content to never see your face again.” I was so furious I nearly stomped my foot like a freaking child.

He smiled, and I swore my palm started to itch with the desire to slap it right off his stupidly sexy face.

“We’ll see about that.”

“There’ll be nothing to see!” I shouted after him as he moseyed toward a motorcycle parked right near my room. For the first time since he showed up, I wondered how he knew where to find me.

I slammed the door to my room on his rich chuckle right before he started the bike up and stomped toward the bathroom. First order of business was to wash Monroe Clifton off my skin. Then I’d take care of the bedsheets.

TEN

DAKOTA

The shower didn’t work.I hadn’t expected it to, but I’d secretly hoped that by washing Roe’s scent off my skin and scrubbing his taste from my mouth that I could easily forget my massive lapse in sound judgement. That wasn’t the case, however, and as soon as I opened the bathroom door, the smell of sex still lingered heavy in the air, bringing everything back in technicolor.

Wrapped in nothing but a towel, my hair still dripping water down my back, I moved through the room, opening the windows to air the space out, before returning to the bathroom. I ran the brush through my hair with more force than necessary, but the agitation that had been riding my shoulders since Roe left had only grown stronger.

I twisted my damp locks into a bun on the top of my head and secured it with a clip, then I took the little handheld mirror from my makeup kit and lifted it as I turned to put my back to the bathroom mirror. Then I did something I hadn’t done in years. I looked at the ugly rose that marred my skin. The very one I’d been able to forget existed. At least until Roe reminded me.

I hated that stupid rose.

Not because it was done poorly. The artist that did it might not have had the same skill as the men in my father’s club who tattooed, but he’d still done a decent job. I hated it because of what it represented.

I’d still been in the midst of the honeymoon phase of my relationship with Adam when I confessed to him late one night what the words on the back of my neck meant. I should have known by his reaction that he was all sorts of wrong for me, but I’d stupidly let myself think that the jealousy and possessiveness that followed was a good thing. I convinced myself that it meant he was passionate about it. That he really did love me as much as he always insisted when he said he couldn’t live without me. Instead of seeing all of those for the red flags they really represented.

After months of him pushing and pushing, I added to the giant, steaming pile of stupid decisions by letting him convince me to cover the tattoo that had once representedeverythingto me. I just couldn’t take hearing, “you’d get rid of it if you really loved me as much as I love you,” once more time. And I was just desperate enough to make Adam happy that I allowed him to choose the tattoo that would cover it.

“I think you should get this one,” Adam said as he pointed at the red rose in full bloom, thorns protruding from the clipped stem still attached. “You love roses, Koty, baby.”

I didn’t, actually. I wasn’t a fan of cut flowers in general—it never failed that they’d die too quickly, leaving me a little melancholy as I thew them out. I much preferred living plants. But roses, especially red ones, were my least favorite. And I was even less of a fan of ‘Koty’,the nickname he’d christened me with.

Hindsight was twenty-twenty, as people loved to say, and it was hard not to hate myself for not seeing all the signs in thebeginning, for falling for Adam’s shit. I just hadn’t seen it while I was in the thick of it.

I let out a weary sigh, dropping the arm that was holding the mirror, as Roe’s words from earlier came back to me.

“You think that fucking rose on your back means I’m gone, you’re dead wrong, baby. You might have tried to erase me, but I’m still there, underneath. All you managed to do was hide me.”

God, I hated how right he was. Those six words still tingled beneath the rose like phantom limb pain. Especially now.