Thorn: Carter Kids #2 (22 page)

“He’s here, Teagan,” she choked out, squeezing me so tight I could barely breathe. “In Cork…I saw him – at the club,” she slurred. “He’s here.”

“Who?” I demanded, hugging her tightly. “Who’s here, Hope?”

“Noah,” she hissed, and the ground fell out from underneath my feet.

All the sensations I had felt when I was seventeen came back full force, smothering my heart and sabotaging my ability to breathe easily.

“Oh my god,” I managed to choke out.

“You’re my thorn, if you leave me I’ll bleed out…”

“For what it’s worth, my in belongs to you…”

“I’m either fighting with you or I’m fucking with you. There’s no middle line, Teagan – not between us…”

My throat closed up.

Every emotion and memory of him that I had spent years forcing into the darkest parts of my mind was resurfacing – fucking flooding me. Noah Messina, the man who stole my heart, the man who shredded it right in front of my eyes…

“He saw me,” Hope wailed. “Teagan, he knows you’re here.”

“What?” My voice was small and frightened. I could feel my eyes bulging in my face. “What did you say?”

Pushing us both into the apartment, Hope swung around and slammed the apartment door before bolting the deadlock. With her back pressed against the wood, she let out a huge sigh of relief. “There,” she half-slurred, half-hiccupped. “That’ll keep the big douche out.”

“A deadbolt?” Shaking my head, I clawed at my hair, as I looked around frantically. “You really think a fucking deadbolt is going to keep him out –”

“Hope!”

I heard my roommate’s name being roared out seconds before the sound of banging infiltrated my eardrums.

“Face him, Teegs,” Hope slurred. “Just get it over and done with.”

“Like you faced Jordan?” I shot back heatedly, before rushing over to help her barricade the door with my body. “Hmm?”

“Hope, I know you’re in there. Open the goddamn door, or I’ll kick it in.”

Oh god, I needed to disappear.

My living-breathing nightmare had arrived on my doorstep and I needed to find the best damn hiding spot that had ever been created in all of time.

Jesus, why couldn’t I have been born with magic powers or an invisibility cloak like Harry Potter? Yeah, sure he was up against Voldermort, but I was pretty sure Voldermort didn’t hold a flame to Noah Messina.

“Go away, you big ass,” Hope screeched, stumbling away from the door.

“Hide,” she mouthed to me, and that’s exactly what I did.

Running like a headless chicken through our own tiny apartment, I dove behind the couch just as the door of our apartment was smashed clean off its hinges.

“Is that any way to speak to your uncle?”

Pain, excitement and anticipation flooded through me like a shot of heroin injected into the waiting vein of its faithful disciple. He had
that
much of an impact on me.

Steeling myself, I slowly rose to my feet. Inhaled a calming breath, I caught a quick glance of my comatose roommate passed out next to the coffee table before locking my eyes on the cheating bastard in the flesh.

Standing in the doorway of my apartment, with his raven black hair all mussed up and disheveled, Noah knocked the breath clean out of my lungs. His dark brown eyes were focused entirely on my face as he ran a hand through his thick black hair.

Clad in faded denim jeans, a red and black plaid shirt unbuttoned and hanging open to reveal a plain white wife beater, I felt my mouth dry up. Noah was here, back in my life, and just like that I was a wreck. My whole body shook at the sight of him.

Feelings I’d forced beneath the surface flooded me, burning my flesh, pushing me towards him. I
needed
to get closer, the brown of his eyes called to me, and yet I needed to run as fast and as far away as I could. I was powerless – absolutely fucking powerless – just the same as I had been when I was seventeen.

Noah inclined his head in my direction before letting out a heavy sigh.

“Thorn,” he acknowledged in his deep, gravelly voice; eyes locked on mine with an intensity I felt right down to my toes. He called me by his old pet name and I felt like I had been sucker punched directly in the stomach.

My heart fluttered around recklessly as the hairs on the back of my neck stood on edge.

Damn him!

“How dare you,” I whispered. There were probably half a dozen more productive ways to handle this situation, but as usual, my emotions took over, clouding my common sense and I dealt with Noah the same way I always had.

I went bat shit crazy.

And then I attacked.

Somersaulting over the back of our couch, I launched myself at the big bastard in my doorway. “How dare you come in here!”

“Hear me out,” Noah grunted after I’d delivered the first blow to his chest.

“Go to hell,” I screamed before swinging my fists and hitting him again and again.

“I’ve been there, sweetheart,” he shot back. Grabbing my wrists to stop me from striking out at him, Noah turned us around. “And it’s not fucking pretty.”

I continued to struggle, kicking and flailing my arms, claws out and teeth bared in my murderous attempt at hurting the man who had ripped me to pieces so many years ago and in so many ways that I’d been unable to piece my pride or my heart back together.

“Agggghhh.” I tried to calm myself down, but it wasn’t happening.

Rage, lust, fury and excitement were thrumming in my veins.

My body was on high alert.

My brain had checked out.

I was running solely on emotion now and I locked onto his shoulder, biting down harder than I’d ever done before.

In that moment I wanted to rip the man to pieces.

If I had to do that with my teeth then so be it.

“Dammit, stop fucking biting me!”

“Bastard,” I snarled, biting down harder.

Shaking me like a rag-doll, Noah pinned me to the wall by my shoulders, before pulling back quickly – out of harm’s way, I guessed.

“I see you’re still as demented as ever,” Noah growled as he pressed me against the wall. “But don’t worry. I still find your psychotic tendencies a real turn-on.”

“I loved you,” I screamed. I was crying hard and ugly, and I was pretty sure my nose was dripping but, but I was out of control. I wanted vindication. I wanted revenge. I wanted a fucking explanation, dammit. “I
loved
you, Noah.”

“I know,” he replied in a gruff tone, dodging my blows. “I know, Thorn.”

Furious with myself for admitting such weakness, I lashed out at him. “Get out of my flat,” I seethed, chest heaving. “Leave me be!”

“Not until you hear me out,” Noah replied calmly, his body crowding mine, his very presence breaking my heart – ripping me apart.

The atmosphere between us was clouded with a fucked up mixture of anger and want, and the cold inside my heart that had protected me these last seven years was melting from the inside out at an alarming pace.

“I tried that remember?” I screamed, holding onto my hurt, before pushing my hair out of my eyes. Noah had broken me and betrayed me, and he had done it in the worst possible way – bedding my enemy. He had taken my virginity, my heart, my trust and my faith in mankind with him. “And
you
hung up on me. Now you want
me
to hear you out? I don’t fucking think so!”

Pain like I had never known existed consumed me, tormenting me, and the image of that redheaded bitch riding my boyfriend almost drove me insane with a toxic concoction of hurt and anger. “Asshole.”

I knew I looked like shit, but I was beyond caring.

I had passed the point of return.

That man had flipped a switch inside of me.

Folding his bulging arms across his chest, Noah glared down at me, his face suddenly serious. “That night,” his voice was deep, rough, and his breath was coming short and fast. “You jumped to conclusions. It wasn’t what it looked like…you need to hear the truth, Thorn.”

“I don’t need to hear about what I got a front row view of, Noah.” I sneered, feeling less like a twenty-five year old woman and more like a bratty adolescent by the minute.

“There’s no talking to you,” he growled. “You’re right when you’re wrong and you never back the fuck down.”

“Wow, Noah,” I spat, delirious with pain and fury. “It sounds like you’re talking to a mirror.”

Throwing his hands up in the air, Noah hissed loudly. “You know what, Teagan, I was a fucking idiot to think that you might have actually grown up. But no. You’re still the same selfish little brat I used to know.”

“Fuck you!” Wrapping my arms around my waist, I tucked my chin downwards and strode forward in the direction of the bathroom, refusing to give him an inch. I needed a moment to breathe and I couldn’t do that with him here. “Keep your distance from me,” I warned him. “I mean it, Noah. You better not still be here when I get of that bathroom.”

“Don’t you dare walk away from me again,” I heard Noah warn seconds before heavy footsteps followed after me. “I fucking loved you, Teagan,” he called out. “And it was real love.” Grabbing the back of my nightdress, he dragged me backwards into his embrace. “It was hard fucking love.”

“You lost the right to love me the second you put your lips on her,” I said in a flat tone, forcing myself to breathe through my mouth so I didn’t inhale his incredible scent. I could feel his heart hammering against his rock hard chest and it was doing terrible things to my self-control.

“Think about it,” he argued in my ear. “I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a fucking cheat.”

“Don’t bother wasting your words on me because what we had…” I inhaled a shaky breath and spat the words out like I was ridding my body of poison. “What we had, it’s dead and gone.”

“You’re the one who threw it all away,” Noah snarled, losing his patience, tightening his hold on me. “Stop being so goddamn stubborn and just hear me out.”

“No!” Pulling free, I turned, met his stare head on and narrowed my eyes. “So don’t touch me, don’t look at me. Don’t fucking acknowledge me.” I was losing control of myself. “We’re done,” I hissed. “We never happened.” Rage bubbled up inside of me, erupting like a volcano of heat and anger. “We never met. You don’t know me.”

I needed to get a grip, but every time I tried to grab onto the ledge of something rational the image of Noah and Reese together – their sweat-soaked naked bodies fused together – impaled my mind and I felt like bursting into flames.

“I wish I never met you.” I closed my eyes and inhaled a slow, calming breath before I spoke, “No, scratch that, I wish you never made it out of that car. Because you, Noah Messina, are by far the worst thing that ever happened to me.”

There was a long stretch of silence, and when I opened my eyes Noah was gone.

And I was alone with a broken heart and a soul full of regret.

Sinking to the floor, I sat numbly, rocking back and forth, as I tried to piece together what the hell had just happened.

I couldn’t explain why I had behaved the way I did, only that Noah seemed to bring out the worst in me – like I did in him.

Why did I have to behave like that? Dammit, I knew I would never forget the pain and betrayal that man had caused me, but I didn’t need to carry it around with me for the rest of my life. It was poisoning me and I was tired of being angry.

Even though I knew we were toxic to each other, a relationship made in hell, a small part of me wanted to
be
with him.

An even bigger part wanted to
believe
him.

But the biggest part of me, the part I chose to listen to, was the bitter voice inside. The voice that warned me Noah Messina had all but ripped me to pieces seven years ago, and to get back in the ring with that man would be emotional suicide.