Psycho Ex Boyfriend (Standalone New Adult Romance) (The Alpha Brotherhood Book 2)
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Authors: Ember Chase
Psycho
Ex Boyfriend
Ember Chase
Copyright © 2016 by Ember Chase
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or actual events, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Sabrina
Age 28
“
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…”
“Happy New Year,” I grumble along with the roaring crowd in Times Square even though I have another hour to wait until it’s official here in Chicago. I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay up that late tonight. I’m not even thirty yet and way too young to pass out before midnight on New Year’s Eve.
But I might be getting too old to drink this much. Swirling my glass, I inhale the aroma of the last few ounces of wine I managed to pour out. I always lose the ability to take in the finer notes and nuances after drinking the entire bottle, but I’m still compelled to try every time, especially on the last glass.
The camera zooms in on another happy, smiling couple and I flick the TV off right before their lips meet. Yet mine still tingle, recalling the kiss we shared on the night we stood right in that very spot, packed into corrals with thousands of celebrating tourists. Adam didn’t want to go, he told me that we’d be miserable the whole time and that there was no way I could go that long without having to pee. I’ll never forget the look in his eyes when I asked him if that was a challenge. He knew right then he’d damned himself to eight hours locked in a pen.
We weren’t miserable. The conditions were awful of course, the experience itself is entirely overrated. This was before smart phones, there was nothing to do except talk and make out. I remember the chill of the air hitting my bare stomach as his hands infiltrated my parka, the way the steel bar of the corral dug into my spine as his erection pressed against my hip. The moment snow started to fall and Adam’s lips parted in surprise as mine spread into a wide grin. There were snowflakes on my eyelashes as he pulled my hood over my head. Our lips were swollen by the time we got to the kiss that counted, and they stayed together longer than everyone else’s as time slowed to a stop.
The memory is still so vivid even though it’s now seven years old, almost to the minute. It doesn’t help that our lips were locked together in a similar fashion just a few weeks ago. Two fleeting happy moments that shine out from all the bullshit and pain he put me through.
Puts
me through.
I wish he’d let me go. I wish I knew how to walk away, how to finally give up on him. But Adam is the biggest challenge I’ve ever taken on, and I just don’t know how to quit when success is always the only option.
And yet here I sit like a hundred nights before, drunk, alone, and letting thoughts of him flow into the forefront of my mind instead of lurking in the background where they belong. There’s no he’s way moping around in pajamas tonight.
I should be out on the prowl getting over him, too. I should be wearing that low cut red dress that’s lying on my bed, stumbling out of the high heels that are sitting right beneath it. Maybe I’d be kissing someone else right at this very moment. Maybe I wouldn’t be sleeping alone tonight, or even sleeping at all. Maybe a one night stand would turn into something more. Maybe I would have met the man that would give me a good reason to turn Adam away the next time he showed up at my door.
Should have, could have, would have. Instead I’m enduring another vivid flashback of Adam’s incredible nude body spread out in my bed as I run my hand over his perfect ass to wake him up and everything he did to me afterwards.
Someone else is ringing in the New Year with that thrill, I’m sure. I try my hardest not to call the anonymous woman a stupid whore, but I’m too drunk for internal censorship. She’s having
my
series of earth shattering multiple orgasms tonight. I’m the one that deserves his touch. But she won’t have the luxury of seeing his tousled hair when the sun rises, feel the heat of his yawn against her skin as he pulls her body closer to his and drifts back to sleep. I’m the only woman tortured by those memories.
It’s just cheap, empty, demented sex. A way to get his control fix. Her hands aren’t allowed to roam his body the way he lets mine, even if they do often end up held down above my head or tied behind my back. His mouth will ravage every inch of her skin, but his lips won’t meet hers, let alone meld together they way ours do as his breath catches in his throat. Nor will their eyes lock in the heat of the moment, even if she isn’t wearing a blindfold. She means nothing to him. He’ll trade her in for a different version the moment he gets bored.
I’m the one he keeps coming back to. And I’m stupid enough to let him in every time. I’m not deluded. I know that he wouldn’t be able to love me either, that I’d be just another toy to him if I even got a second glance. But I’m more to him than that and it’s not wishful thinking. If anything, it’s more like a curse.
I got under his skin long before all the shit happened that left him the shadow he is today. He got under mine before I was old enough to know better than to let him.
A startling knock on my door rips me away from wallowing in self-pity. I freeze for a moment, convinced that I must have fallen asleep and the noise was in a dream until the unexpected visitor knocks again. Kicking my wine glass over as I stumble to my feet, my hands automatically start smoothing down my hair as my eyes watch those last sacred crimson droplets stain my favorite white rug.
“Who is it?” I ask as I rise to my toes to look through the peephole.
“Me.” My heart skips a beat when I find my psycho ex-boyfriend’s face on the other side of my door. Adam’s coat pulls open as he rubs the back of his neck. “Let me in,” he demands in a whisper, nervously looking in both directions down the hallway.
“No,” I answer automatically.
“Sabrina, I need—”
“Go get your twisted sex from one of your whores.”
His eyebrows raise in surprise at my crude language as my hand flies to my mouth. “I was about to say help,” Adam replies quietly, staring directly into the lens on my door as if he can see me.
He’s got that in-over-his-head look in his eyes that I’ve seen too many times before. The concern combined with the sensation of flattery that he came to me instead of someone else leaves me without any choice but to do as he says.
Striding into my living room, he closes the door immediately behind him and leans against it as anticipation bubbles in my stomach. His eyes close and he takes a few deep breaths, kicking off his shoes and dropping a greasy paper bag on the floor. After that moment of silently collecting himself, my pulse spikes as he takes off his coat and undoes the top button of his shirt. He’s edgy as all hell and he’s not wearing a tie tonight. That’s unusual. Adam’s fantastic in bed when he’s on edge, but a little hard to handle once he’s been pushed over.
I’ll take him either way. My lips part as our eyes meet, but I don’t get that smug grin I’m half expecting, the one that always leads to a fevered kiss that somehow turns into some of that twisted sex I’ll claim I wasn’t asking for the next morning. That’s not why he came here.
His chin drops slightly as I run my fingers across his jaw. The corner of his mouth curls into a hint of a smile as he leans closer, resting some of the weight of his head into my palm as his eyelids flutter closed.
“What happened?” I whisper.
Breaking the silence was a mistake. The glimpse of vulnerability disappears and Adam’s expression turns to stone as his spine straightens. “We don’t have a lot of time,” he replies, bringing his wrist between us to check his ostentatious watch.
My gaze locks onto a smear of red across the perfect white cuff of his sleeve. If it was on his collar I might be able to pretend it was lipstick. An unthinkable fear reaches into my chest and squeezes, twisting into my throat as a chill runs up my spine.
Adam notices my reaction and quickly finds the source. “I apologize,” he says, turning away from me. “That was sloppy.”
“What did you do?” I ask as he removes his watch and further infiltrates my apartment to set it on the sofa table. “Adam!” I grab at his wrist as he finishes unbuttoning his shirt.
“Something I’ve never done before,” he answers flatly.
He’s been around the block a few times. Hell, around the world. That doesn’t leave many options. “Is that blood?”
“You’re an attorney. Should I really answer that?”
“I’m not a defense attorney.”
“Pity. You might need to put me in touch with a good one.” His laughter is tainted with a touch of anxiety. “That’s a gas fireplace, correct?” he asks with his thousand dollar shirt clenched in his fist. I stand there speechless. “Bree?”
My heart is pounding so loud in my ears I can barely hear myself say, “Tell me what you did.”
“You know what I did!” he yells. “Now help me get away with it.” The gravity of our situation becomes more apparent with every passing second. This is not happening. “
Sabrina.
”
“Gas fireplace,” I respond. “No ashes, you can’t burn…” I don’t want to say the word evidence, that makes this far too real. “Please tell me you have a plan. I don’t think I can…”
“Of course I have a plan. Get me a garbage bag before I contaminate more of your fucking house.” His concerned eyes drift down to the wine-stained rug and the empty bottle on coffee table. “You’re drinking again,” he remarks, letting out a frustrated breath.
“It’s New Year’s Eve.” I stumble past him towards the kitchen.
“That’s typically celebrated with a glass of champagne at a party, not a bottle of red on your couch,” Adam admonishes me as if he isn’t the reason that bottle’s empty.
“A bottle and a half,” I correct him, holding open the garbage bag. My head is spinning, but I do my best to keep him from seeing it. “Does that upset your master plan?”
His eyes narrow as he unbuckles his belt. “I’ll work around it. You’re taking a shower with me before we go.”
“Before we go where?”
Flashing me a sly grin, he tosses his pants and underwear into the bag, leaving him buck naked. “I’ll let you pick, but I’d prefer a tropical climate. And no extradition treaties, obviously.”
“There is nothing remotely humorous about this situation.”
“Relax,” he says. “All we have to do is make an appearance at that party downstairs.”
“I’m not pretending to be a happy couple tonight.”
“Two weeks ago, we wouldn’t have been pretending.”
“Well, that was two weeks ago, wasn’t it?” I snap.
“Do you want to visit me in prison?” he shoots back.
His dark brown eyes lock with mine in a standoff like they have a thousand times before. But I am tired of arguing. I’ve spent ten days, and ten
long
nights, waiting to hear him knock on my door and tell me that he’s tired of fighting, too. “Is prison a real possibility?”
My question disarms him and he tentatively reaches forward to take the bag from my hands. “Of course not. I shouldn’t have said that.”
His fingers graze mine and I draw in a quivering breath. There’s electricity between us, always has been, and there’s nothing static about it. His skin prickles with goosebumps as his mouth drops open slightly, but then he rolls his lips together and his eyes fall to the floor.
“I can’t kiss you. Some of his blood got in my mouth,” Adam explains, tying the garbage bag shut. “I can still taste it.”
Oh, my God
. “I need a shower.”
Why did I have to get so drunk tonight? It certainly softened the blow, but dulled my senses when I clearly want them to be sharp. Adam needs me and I’m trapped in a stupor that adrenaline can barely cut through.
“Okay,” I breathe, shaking my head back and forth. “It’s 11:17. We need to be out of here in twenty minutes.” I take the bag from him and make my way into the kitchen. “Go wash up. I’ll be there after I get some espresso in my system.”
“That’s my girl,” he says, winking at me. That wink and the smile that goes with it is very dear to my heart, which skips a beat as he turns and disappears into my bathroom. Against my will and better judgement, I imagine
that
wink and
that
phrase coming out of
that
grin almost every time I want to give up on something.
Five minutes total from grinding the beans to looking into the bottom of a cup. Not my best pour by far, but probably my best time. I put on a pot of regular coffee as I shove the bag of Adam’s microscopically blood splattered clothes into my nearly empty garbage can. No one will be up here to look for it and even if they are, hiding it in a cabinet will look a lot more suspicious. We’ll have to smuggle it out of the building somehow in the morning.
His toothbrush is in the sink when I get into the bathroom, the outline of his body barely visible in the steam. “Get in here,” he demands.
“I took a shower this morning.”
“It won’t look right if I’m the only one. People who spend New Year’s Eve in fucking each other’s brains out all night typically shower together before stumbling downstairs for the countdown.”
“Is that your alibi?”
“That should be obvious to you at this point.”