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  right past his lies to the pain lurking beneath the surface, beneath the facade he was so good at clinging to when he didn’t want to show his true feelings.

  I slapped him across the face.

  Hard.

  His hands dug harshly into my hips and he jerked me toward him, the boat rocked violently. “Careful,” he warned.

  “You can try and distract me by making me angry, but you can’t, it’s not going to work. Not this time. So tell me Bear,” I repeated my question. “What. Do. You. Want?” I was angry that the beautiful man in front of me couldn’t see what I saw in him.

  “What I want isn’t important,” Bear said. He moved his hands around to my lower back and tugged me in closer. “I can’t have what I want.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because what I want is not fucking possible!” he said. “Tell me, Ti. You gonna bring my dead friend back? ’Cause Preppy died right in front of my eyes and I couldn’t save him! You gonna give me my club? I want things to be the way they were supposed to be before it all went to shit. You gonna take the nightmares away? The ones where I relive Eli and his men torturing me, shoving some broken bat up my ass and shoving their cocks in my mouth? Because I want all that and more than anything I want…” He looked away, but I wasn’t about to let him stop there. I brought his gaze back to mine and held it there.

  “What? What else do you want?” I asked, softly this time. When he didn’t answer right away I was afraid I’d already lost him.

  After an eternity he finally spoke and when he did his words knocked the wind from my chest. “You.” He finally admitted, his voice stronger, more assertive than just seconds before. “I’ve been a ruined man for a long time. I can’t ruin you too.”

  “You didn’t ruin me,” I said. “You saved me.”

  I didn’t even realize the boat had started to tip over until it was too late. I lost my hold on Bear and crashed into the dark water.

  Bear’s strong arms lifted me out. “Grab onto the side,” he said, tapping on the side of the boat. I couldn’t reach the ground but Bear could because he held onto the boat and walked us toward the nearby shore. I was so wrapped up in Bear that I hadn’t noticed how close we’d floated. King and Ray’s house looked so small from across the bay. Lights flickered in the windows. It seemed a million miles away, not just a few hundred feet.

  Suddenly I was airborne and in seconds I was flat on my back on a tiny muddy beach and Bear was on top of me. His lips crushing mine until I couldn’t breath, his hand palming my breast, his cock hard and ready between my legs.

  “Baby, I’m sorry,” he said dropping his forehead to mine in a rare moment of vulnerability. His voice was rough and shaky. “Help me. Please. I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

  “What are you trying to do?” I asked. He raised up, just enough to look me in the eye.

  “I’m trying to love you.”

  We were two tortured souls. Both in more ways than one person should ever have to experience.

  But we found each other.

  We needed each other.

  So help him I did.

  I sat up enough to pull him back down to me, the broken shells in the mud dug into my back. The water of the bay lapped over my bare feet. Bear was a million different things, and he may have been pushing thirty, but we were alike in so many ways. He was just a boy who had no clue what he was doing and I was just a girl who had no idea what to do with all the feelings I had swarming around inside of me.

  I just knew that I wanted him.

  That I loved him.

  “Promise me that no matter what, that you won’t give up on me. Promise me, Ti,” Bear said, his eyes welling up with water. I wiped the corner of his eye with my thumb and he leaned into my touch.

  “I won’t give up on you,” I promised and I meant it.

  I would never give up on him.

  Neither of us knew what the future held for us, if anything at all. All we knew is that we had today. Right then, right there. We were just a normal boy and a normal girl trying to figure out how to love one another.

  Today.

  Tomorrow we would figure out the rest.

  Today, Bear pulled my shorts and panties to the side, sank his hard cock deep inside of me and frantically fucked me until I couldn’t think of anything but him, the orgasm that tore through my body, the tears that ran down my face, and the elation my heart felt over knowing that the stupid boy who made mistakes loved me.

  And that was good enough.

  For today.

  Because tomorrow never came.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Thia

  Bear pushed the boat back in the water and used a thick branch to row us back to the other side of the bay. “I really am sorry,” Bear said again when we were halfway across.

  “I really do love you,” I said, and I meant it.

  “You know that you are the only person in my life who has ever told me that?” Bear asked.

  “What is going on?” I asked, noticing a commotion going on by the seawall, which Bear had his back to as we rowed.

  “Fuck if I know. This is all new to me too,” Bear said, oblivious to what I was referring to.

  “No, turn around,” I said and Bear looked behind me to where a woman wearing an all white pantsuit stood on the seawall. Her dark hair was pulled into a severe bun and her lipstick was so bright red that I could see it even in the dim lights of the dock. Next to her were three police officers with their guns raised and aimed at our boat.

  Bear turned around and as soon as he saw what we were heading toward he tried to subtly turn the boat around but it was too late, we hit the current and it pushed us rapidly toward the seawall. “I’m sorry,” the woman said, “I know this wasn’t supposed to be until tomorrow but I couldn’t hold them off. I tried to call your cell.”

  “Bear, what is she talking about?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

  “Fuck!” Bear cursed, dropping the useless branch into the water.

  “Cynthia Anne Andrews?” one of the officers asked.

  “Why are they calling my name?” I asked Bear who looked at the floor of the boat and then back up at me.

  “Don’t forget your promise, Ti. Don’t give up on me,” he said as the boat hit the seawall. One of the officers reached down to grab me and I shrieked.

  “Don’t fucking touch her!” he warned, standing up in the boat. The officer pulled back but held up his gun again. “Ti, you gotta go with them.”

  “What?” I asked. My heart pounding rapidly against my chest. Ray and King had come out of the house and were standing several feet behind the woman and the cops watching the scene unfold.

  “Thia, I’m Bethany, your attorney, and he’s right, you have to come with me.”

  “I thought it was just a meeting? I thought it was tomorrow?” I asked as the understanding of what was happening sunk in.

  “I’m sorry,” she said and I believed her. Bear bent down to lift me onto the seawall and I shrugged him off.

  I was going to prison.

  And Bear knew.

  That’s why he’d tried to push me away. He knew they were coming for me and wanted to sever whatever it is that we had before they did.

  Before I was gone.

  “No, don’t touch me,” I argued, but Bear didn’t listen.

  He grabbed me by the back of my legs. “Remember your promise,” he whispered again, hoisting me up toward the awaiting officers. Bethany threw Bear his jeans and he stepped into them before climbing onto the seawall, the little boat kicked out from under him and without being tied down was quickly launched into the mangroves by the current.

  I hung my head and held out my hands behind my back, waiting to be cuffed. Bethany came to stand by my side and gave my shoulder a small reassuring squeeze. It didn’t work.

  “You are under arrest for the murders of Wayne and Trinity Andrews anything you say…” One of the officers started and that’s when I looked up and notice
d that their attentions weren’t on me. And neither were their guns.

  They were on Bear.

  “No!” I shouted, lunging forward but Bethany caught me by the shirt and tugged me back. They cuffed Bear and holstered their guns. They pushed him forward through the grass to one of the awaiting squad cars that were parked by the house, the rotating lights painting everything in splashes of blue and red.

  “King!” I shouted, but he looked at me in a warning that said to keep my mouth shut. I broke free from Bethany’s grip and ran forward. Bear hopped to the right, dodging the officers long enough to spin back around to me. I launched myself up at him wrapping my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist and I kissed him furiously until one of the officers pried me away, our lips the last of our connection to be severed.

  “You don’t have to do this. Please. Please don’t do this,” I begged him, still not fully understanding what exactly was going on. Tears streaming down my face as the officers placed me in front of King who wrapped his arms around my shoulders and whose stone like grip didn’t allow for even an inch of movement toward Bear. Ray came to stand next to me, and Bethany next to her.

  The officers forcefully pushed Bear forward, smashing the side of his face against the police cruiser where they patted him down. Before throwing him into the back of the car he looked back at me.

  “I love you,” he mouthed and with the echo of the slam of the door shutting Bear off from me, from my life, I swear I also heard the sound of my heart shattering.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Bear

  I reined down punches on Corp’s face until it was a mangled mess of skin and blood and my orange jumpsuit was splattered with red. Serves the motherfucker right for coming at me with a fucking shank.

  As soon as I knew Corps was in county I knew he’d be coming for me. Too bad they sent a pussy to do a man’s job.

  Two weeks I’d been waiting and watching until he finally made his move, but I was ready.

  Judging from the wreckage that used to be his face I can honestly say that he wasn’t.

  “McAdams, you have a visitor,” snapped the guard. Corps moaned and I delivered one last punch to the side of his jaw, knocking him out cold. I stood up as the guard slid open my cell.

  “I see your visit went well,” said the disinterested guard who tapped away on his phone as he led me to the visitor waiting area. He was the prick who put him in there to begin with, fully understanding what it was that Corps planned on doing.

  “It did. He’s shit for company though. Doesn’t say much. Moans and groans a lot. I think he might be ill. Splitting headache,” I joked as the guard looked up from his phone long enough to roll his eyes and open the door separating the cell block from the hallway that led to the visitation area. “My lawyer came earlier. Who’s here?” I asked.

  “Some chick,” the guard said, pushing open another door. I stopped.

  “Take me back,” I said. I told King not to let Ti come. As much as I wanted to see her I didn’t want her to see me in here and her coming for a visit wouldn’t work with the confession I’d signed.

  “Can’t, you got a visitor. She showed ID. She signed in. You go in. You got five minutes,” the officer said, opening the little room that looked like a cafeteria. I scanned the tables, which were mostly empty. It only took me seconds to realize that Ti wasn’t among the visitors. There was only one table where a lone woman sat waiting, looking down at her hands.

  “Her?” I asked the guard.

  “Yep,” he said, shutting the door behind me.

  I made my way over to her and was about to tell her that she signed in to see the wrong prisoner, but when she looked up at me all the air in my lungs left in a swoosh.

  “Abel?” she asked, looking up from behind silver streaked dark brown bangs.

  My head spun and I blinked to make sure what I was seeing wasn’t a hallucination.

  “Mom?”

  EXCERPT FROM SOULLESS

  COMING SPRING 2016

  Thia

  Handcuffs bit into my wrists. My arms strained above my head as I hung from a pipe that ran across the ceiling. When I could no longer hold myself up and my muscles gave out with a POP as my joints painfully dislocated. My chest fell to my chin. Wide tape covered my mouth, wrapped around the back of my head, pulling on my hair every time I turned my head. With one nostril stuffed up I felt dizzy, barely able to get enough oxygen through the other.

  My vision blurred as I tried to focus on my surroundings. Grey. Concrete. An open ceiling with pipes and wires. Nothing on the bare walls. A metal cage in the far corner. In the center of the small room was a blue tarp. Next to the tarp was a red toolbox with a yellow electric drill set on top. It was all so clean.

  Sterile.

  That’s when the panic set in and my eyes opened wide as the realization of Gus’s plan for me. I pulled on the cuffs above my head with a newfound strength I didn’t have seconds earlier. My legs flailed around uselessly in mid air as I struggled against my restraints.

  The door opened and Gus entered the room. When I first met him in the park he’d protected Bear and myself. I’d even thought he was cute in a best friend chubby cheeked kind of way.

  That Gus wasn’t who walked into the room. This Gus looked up at me, dangling from the ceiling, like I was a steak and he was a hungry lion who hadn’t eaten in months.

  “I really wish it could be me who could have all the fun with you today, but you see little one, I have a phone call to make to Bear. I have to let him know that his girl has been kidnapped by the MC. I have to continue playing the role of loyal soldier, so unfortunately for me, I had to call in a substitute.” He stepped up to me and I braced for whatever it was he was about to do. My heart hammering in my chest.

  The tape being pulled off was painful, but it passed quickly and I was finally able to take deep breaths. Gulping for air as if I’d been drowning. “Why do this at all?” I asked, after finally being able to catch my breath. “Me, Bear, the MC? Why?”

  “I don’t ask why. I do what I’m told. Asking why is not my job.”

  “Then what is your job? Who hired you?”

  Gus covered my mouth with his hand and pressed his forehead to mine. My stomach rolled. “That doesn’t matter. What only matters now is what is about to happen to you. My advice? Give into the pain. Enjoy it. The human body is a fascinating machine and although I don’t get to do it myself, I’ll be watching the video later and I’m sure watching that machine come apart is going to be nothing short of spectacular.” He let go of my mouth and set the tape back in place. “Although I’m sure Bear is not going to love it as much as I will. He doesn’t appreciate the beauty in it like I do.”

  He stuck out his fat tongue and licked my face from my jaw to my eye and my stomach rolled again.

  Gus stepped back and took one last lustful look at me. “Such a shame, little one.” Before he left the room he adjusted a camera next to the door I hadn’t noticed. A red light came on. “Maybe, I’ll stay. Just for the first part,” Gus said, opening the door. “We’re ready,” he called out and a blond man appeared in the room, shutting the door behind him. He was shirtless, cut and muscular, tattoos covered his arms and chest.

  A wrench in his hands that he tapped into his palm over and over again as he looked me up and down.

  Gus was evil.