Wrong For You (Before You Series Book 3) (17 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Are you ready to go?”

“Maybe we should just stay in bed today,” Alec murmured, arching one eyebrow in that lazy, yet suggestive way that made her heart beat double time.

With the smell of them lingering in the air, she was tempted to crawl back in bed. Last night, she felt as though he had marked her soul, binding and twisting them together on a deeper, more intimate level than anything she’d ever experienced or believed possible. And this morning, the lovemaking was tender, sincere, and every bit as world jarring as the crazy, wild possession of the previous night. Helping Alec come to terms with his childhood and his real dad made him open up to her in a way she wouldn’t have believed possible and the thought of him leaving Montana tomorrow made her chest ache, but she pushed the thought away.

For now, she’d savor this lazy moment when she felt totally sated and happy with her life. “No,” she said, smiling indulgently as Alec pulled her hips against his, burying his head in her hair. “I really can’t. I promised Ryder I’d get his rafting equipment out of storage.”

“Can’t he do it himself?” He bent down, imprisoning her lips in a not-so-simple kiss that made her want to push him backwards onto the bed so she could lick, bite and score every one of his tattoos for the second time in less than eight hours.

Reluctantly, she pried her lips from his. “I wish,” she said, staring into his fathomless midnight blue eyes, “But he won’t have time when he gets home, and taking the kids rafting was my idea. He didn’t want to do it until next weekend.”

“Right.” He dragged his lips along her neck, lightly nipping that spot where her neck curved into her shoulder and goose bumps rocketed down her arms.

“You’re coming with me, though, right?” She curled her hands into the sides of his black t-shirt. After last night, she wasn’t ready to be separated from him.

“I wouldn’t let you go alone,” he said, his hands moving possessively up and down her sides stroking the fire that always simmered between them from the moment they met.

Eventually, he stepped back, feathering his fingers between hers, pulling her toward the kitchen. “Breakfast first and definitely coffee,” he practically groaned. Alec didn’t do anything in the morning before he drank at least two cups of coffee. It was his ritual, but she didn’t mind. It was kind of endearing the way he made her set the timer on the coffee machine every morning so he didn’t have to wait for it to brew when he woke up.

“Yes, we’ll feed and caffeinate you before we leave. How does that sound?”

“Like you know me well.”

A faint smile curled her lips. He didn’t mean it as some monumental confession, but it felt profound and permanent as though he intended to be part of her life for the foreseeable future. “What’s for breakfast?”

“Nothing you make.” He squeezed her hand, letting her know he was teasing her.

“I know. You’re the cook, not me.”

Pausing at the end of the hallway, he smiled down at her.

“Vi! Get your lazy ass out here.”

“Ryder,” she said, dropping Alec’s hand and running to hug her brother, who stood in the middle of the living room.

“I was wondering when you’d wake up.” He lifted her up and twirled her around. “We have so much to do today. I can’t believe you slept this long. I was starting to worry about you. You’re always up at the crack ass of dawn.”

Alec stepped into the living room, leaning against the wall.

“You’re just in time to help.” She waved her hand in Alec’s direction. “This is Alec—”

“Alec fucking Reed, Chasing Ruin’s drummer,” Ryder interrupted. “I thought your name sounded familiar when Vi mentioned it, but holy shit, it really is you. I’m a huge fan.”

Ryder patted Alec on the back like they were long lost friends and Violet…she did nothing. She couldn’t. Her eyes ping ponged back and forth between her brother and Alec, and for the first time in her life, she couldn’t say a word. Alec’s eyes searched hers, pleadingly for something. She didn’t know what because she was still trying to process that Alec might not be Alec, or at the least the Alec she thought she knew. As the minutes ticked ominously, her heart sped up with every inhalation and exhalation until she wondered if it would explode in her chest while she waited for Alec to say something, anything, either acknowledging or denying her brother’s words.

“When is the band starting work on the new album?” Ryder asked, looking at Alec with total, sickening fan worship and her stomach lurched.

Silence hung in the room, a tangible presence, heavy and awkward, pressing on her chest. Her fingernails dug into her palms until she was sure she drew blood.

“Next week,” Alec said without looking away from her, his eyes tormented and shadowed.

The room swayed, anger and deceit slicing through her body one tiny invisible, but no less painful, swipe at a time. Until that moment, she had hoped there was a mistake or some explanation, but with those two words Alec shattered her last remnant of hope and all the dreams she’d been building with Alec in her mind. In its place, a big voluminous void of loathing sucked at her soul.

“Violet,” Alec said, his voice low and cautious as he reached for her hand, but the minute he made contact, she ripped her hand away from him. His touch caused icy anger to crept in her veins.

“Wait,” Ryder said, looking between the two of them. “Are you dating my sister?”

“Yes.”

“No,” she snapped so loud that she hoped it erased Alec’s admission because whatever they’d been doing, she had no intention of continuing. He took what they had and threw it away before it even started and, at that instant, she didn’t know if she’d ever recover from his callous game.

“Can I talk to you outside for a minute?”

“I’m good. I’ve heard everything I need to hear,” she said, taking a deep breath, trying to beat back the roller coaster of emotions whipping through her. A part of her wanted to walk down her long stretch of hallway and climb back into bed and pretend as though nothing happened, that Alec didn’t just rip her heart out by admitting that everything was a lie, a big fat lie from the first day he walked into her life. But this was reality, and no matter how long she hid, it wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t change that she’d just spent almost four weeks with a person she knew nothing about. With that thought, a cold sweat rippled through her body, making her lightheaded. “Um, I need a minute,” she said, walking backwards out of the room, needing to be alone. She didn’t want to fall apart in front of Alec and her brother.

She heard Alec and Ryder’s voices as she retreated, but she couldn’t even process the words. Blind panic slithered through her until she became an unfocused shell of herself. The minute she walked into the room she collapsed onto her bed, holding the pillow over her face, squeezing her eyes shut, hoping it would keep reality away, but…fuck…it smelled like
him
and she couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. Every kiss, every touch, every smile they had shared flickered through her mind, tormenting her.

Maybe a minute or an hour later, she didn’t know, the bed dipped next to her and she didn’t bother lifting the pillow from her now dry face. Ryder or Alec, it didn’t matter which one. She didn’t want to talk to either at that moment.

“Little Violet,” Alec said, his deep voice hoarse, thick, and swimming with regret. “I’m so sorry.”

With those words, the dull ache in her chest expanded and accelerated until she was sure she was bleeding, and not just metaphorically. “Why?” she said, forcing the words from her too dry throat.

“I can explain,” he said, running his fingertips along her bare exposed arm, her skin prickling. She flinched, twisting her body away from him, hating his lying touch.

When he didn’t stop, she threw the pillow covering her face across the room. “You can explain why you made a fool out of me or why you toyed with a dumb, small town girl? Did you do this as some sick, twisted game because I didn’t recognize you?”

Alec’s eyes darted away, guilt carved into every line of his face. She could almost see his mind turning, relentlessly searching for a reason that would explain why he lied about his identity. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t…” his voiced trailed off as though he couldn’t find the right words.

She wanted to scream at him, hit him. Instead, a sharp peel of laughter exploded out of her mouth, exposing the otherwise hidden level of hysteria that crept into her mind. He was the one who made her dinner, who kissed her, who made her fall in love with him. Just as the thought registered, her stomach revolted, twisting uncomfortably inside of her, because it was the truth. She still loved Alec, but now she didn’t even know what that meant because she didn’t even know him…not the real him, anyway. She rolled onto her side, draping a limp arm over her face. She didn’t want him to see the tears that broke free once again, carrying away little bits of her heart with them as they washed down her face and evaporated into thin air. If only the memory of him could evaporate as easily… “Can you go? You’ve had your fun,” she said in a strangled voice.

“I wanted to tell you. I really did. I didn’t mean for it to happen like this.”

“When? Before or after you fucked me, or were you saving the big reveal for the day you left Montana? You know, a little parting surprise. Oh, and by the way, I’m famous, but it was fun slumming it with you. Have a nice life,” she mocked in a patronizing tone.

He reached for her hand, pulling it from her face. She slapped him away. “Don’t touch me,” she warned through clenched teeth, her voice unnaturally flat and totally lifeless.

“Dammit, Violet, it wasn’t like that. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think you’d give me a chance to know you otherwise. You’re not the type of woman I normally date. You’re too good for me.”

“Seriously?” She sat up on her bed, letting her legs dangle off the side. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

He wrapped his arms around her so quickly she didn’t have a chance to push him away this time. “I wanted to tell you so many times and last night after I met with my dad, I tried, but it didn’t happen. You told me nothing I could say would change your mind.”

Prying her hands between their bodies, she tried to shove him away. For a long second, he tightened his arms around her and she inhaled his spicy, citrus scent, letting it fill her lungs and sear her heart with bittersweet love and betrayal. When he lowered his head and brushed his lips across the top of her hair, she clung to him, burrowing her hands into his shirt, running her nose along his chest while her heart begged her to give him another chance, but she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t be a weak little puppet, so she shoved the words she needed to say out of her mouth. “I can’t do this now. I need space. I can’t think around you.”

He nodded, then dropped his arms before standing up near the edge of her bed, staring at her with miles of regret and sadness. “I never meant to hurt you. Please remember that.” His words were so soft, reverent even, and so uncharacteristically Alec that she had to look at him even though it hurt to do so.

She took in his hooded blue eyes, the white, barely there, scar lancing his eyebrow, and his subtly crooked Roman nose, and she realized she didn’t know this man. Sure, she touched every inch of him with her mouth and hands, indelibly burning him into her memories and her heart, but she didn’t really know him. He was Alec Reed, the drummer of Chasing Ruin, and that made him someone entirely different from the person she kissed just that morning before reality crashed down on them. “I don’t even know who you are,” she whispered, the words scarring her throat as they exited her mouth. Her irrational and totally untrustworthy heart screamed at her to take her words back, that she did know him, but her mind was done being ruled by her heart. She had to think rationally.

“Baby,” he pleaded. “You know me. I’m still the same person as when we woke up this morning.” He lifted her hand and pressed it against his chest over his rapidly beating heart, but she refused to uncurl her fingers. It hurt too much to touch him. She could feel the severed pieces of heart that had bloomed with hope over the past few weeks wither inside of her chest. “You know what’s in here. Chasing Ruin…that doesn’t matter. It’s not my identity. That’s not me. It’s what I do, but what I shared with you is me…the real me. And the real me loves you.”

She shook her head, her pale blonde hair floating around her shoulders. “If it wasn’t you, or at least a big part of you, you wouldn’t have hid it from me. It wouldn’t have been a big deal.”

“I wanted you to know me, not the person the world or gossip websites think they know, and the only way that could happen was to keep it from you just for a little while, not forever. Is that so bad?”

“Yes.” Even as she said the words, a little part of her wanted to fall back into his arms, but she wouldn’t. If she let him back in now, he’d only hurt her later because she could never compete for his attention once he walked back into a reality that was so far from her realm of comprehension, it might as well have been another galaxy. “I can’t do this. Who you are, what you did, changes everything.” She pushed the tangled strands of hair from her face. “You need to get out of my room, my house. I can’t look at you.”