Page 10 of Relapse

Dagger just shakes his head again, muttering something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like fucking menace before grabbing my waist and lifting me onto the bike like I weigh absolutely nothing.

Oh.

Okay.

That—

That’s fucking hot.

Unfortunately.

“I had legs literally thirty seconds ago,” I protest weakly, gripping his shoulders automatically.

“And now you’ve got a ride.”

Cocky dickhead.

He swings onto the bike in front of me and starts the engine.

The roar vibrates through me instantly—through my thighs, my ribs, straight into every already fried nerve ending in my body.

And when I wrap my arms around his waist—

Because contrary to popular belief, I actually don’t want to fly off the back of a motorcycle and become a tragic roadside memorial—

One ugly little truth settles deep in my chest.

The drugs were never the real problem.

Because sitting here behind him, pulse racing, head spinning, already sinking back into this like it owns me—

Because somewhere between the drugs, the chaos, and wrapping my arms around the exact men who nearly ruined me the first time, one deeply catastrophic truth settles in hard—

This wasn’t just a relapse back into the pills.

It was a relapse back into them too.

Chapter five

Chapter Two

Dagger

The second her arms wrap around my waist, I know I’m fucked.

Not in the fun way either.

In the this girl is going to crawl under my skin and carve herself into something permanent kind of way.

The bike tears through the quiet streets while the sun keeps dragging itself up over the horizon, pale orange light bleeding across the buildings, but I barely register any of it. All I can feel is her pressed against my back, forehead bumping lightly between my shoulders every time she shifts, arms tightening around me whenever I take a corner too fast.

Like she forgot she was supposed to hate me five minutes ago.

Or maybe she didn’t.

Maybe that’s the problem.

I grip the handlebars tighter.