Thorn: Carter Kids #2 (11 page)

THERE WEREN’T MANY THINGS
I had done in my lifetime that I regretted.

I was a live in the moment kind of person.

I was passionate and let my emotions guide me through my life.

I didn’t do regrets – I never had.

But not going to Noah that night, leaving him alone to deal with his injuries, well, I regretted that.

I called the prison the night I found out, but that had proved fruitless. I wasn’t told a damn thing about him, which I had expected to happen anyway. I wanted to see him, no one would ever realize how badly I wanted to see that boy, but how could I show up after a year of no contact? And what if he refused to see me?

Oh god, my mind was a mess, obsessing and freaking out over the potential possibilities – working myself up about conversations that hadn’t taken place.

If he had just listened to me that night. If he had trusted me and come away with me then none of this would be happening now. He wouldn’t have cheated, he wouldn’t be in prison, and I wouldn’t be driving myself out of my mind worrying about him.

But he didn’t listen to me that night.

He didn’t trust me.

And now I was stuck.

Trapped in his love.

Lost in my misery.

I couldn’t get past it.

I NEVER HAD A STABLE HOME LIFE AS A KID.

My parents were a goddamn disaster and, in many ways, had steered me in the direction of prison life from the day I was born. Every bad thing I had ever done was both for and because of them. I had never really had a chance at normality.

I couldn’t read for shit because I had missed a lot of school growing up. I wasn’t even sent to a mainstream school until I was seven, and even then we had moved around so much I never really got a chance to settle down anywhere – not that my folks gave a damn about that.

They weren’t concerned with what I could do with my mind, only what I could do with my fists. I remembered the first time I stood in a ring. I was six and up against a boy who was nine. That kid beat me so badly that I cried. I had quickly learned that showing weakness was a mistake and, after taking my beaten from my father, I had been tossed back into the ring and told
fight or die
.

Fight or die.

Three words that had been my bedtime prayers.

After that day I never cried again. I toughened up. I stopped feeling.

But I knew I had one reason to thank my parents.

Their fucked-upness kept me clean.

Experiencing what I had growing up was the reason I was able to keep my head clear in this place. Drugs were as easy to come by as a glass of water, and I’d be a goddamn liar if I said I wasn’t tempted.

Fuck, I wanted to forget about shit, just like every other asshole in this place, but I wanted to not be like my parents that much more.

So I used my best attribute and hit the weight room as hard as I could every spare chance I got; fucking working myself to the goddamn bone.

I accepted every fight I was challenged to in here, and I destroyed every single opponent. I was ruthless because I feared nothing, and I was unbeatable because I had
nothing
to lose.

Losing didn’t matter to me.

Dying meant even less.

Whoever took me on would have to put me in a body bag, or quit like a bitch because I felt
no
pain and I showed
no
remorse.

I’d had more fights in the last two years than I could remember – broken more bones and spilled more blood – and it did absolutely
nothing
to stem the anger inside of me.

Anger at being abandoned.

Fucking hatred at being let down by the one person I had put my trust in.

Thorn…

Some nights, I forced my mind to pretend that she had never existed in the first place. It was just easier to live in denial than to live with the fucking betrayal, hurt and goddamn torture of it all.

But then there were other nights.

Nights when I dreamed about kissing my girl; of feeling her body against mine, flesh against flesh, no barriers. Those nights the memories of being inside her kept me company. Thoughts of Thorn, naked and spread open beneath me, kept me company at night.

Fisting my dick, I would envision fucking her in every orifice in her body every night from my jail cell. Trapped in the silence, I would mentally paint her image on the ceiling of my cell.

Her hazel eyes.

Those plump fleshy lips.

That long blonde hair I fucking adored, and her sassy spirit.

There was a time I would have done pretty much anything for that girl. Anything. I would have torn the skin off another man’s flesh just to keep her safe. But she betrayed me in the worst fucking way – abandoning me when I needed her most.

It wasn’t like I wasn’t used to being let down and betrayed.

I was.

Hell, my whole life consisted of disappointment after disappointment, but with Teagan, I always knew deep down in my bones that I had found something different – special.

Something permanent.

She was the polar opposite of every woman I had ever known. She never wanted me for my dick, or my fists, or the popularity that came from being with the local bad boy. Teagan had never been interested in any of that shit. She saw through it – she saw the real me.

That’s why it hurt so fucking bad. I swear to god, nothing had ever hurt me like she had.

Now my anger was all I had.

My anger and my thirst for revenge.

“YOU ARE MOVING FUCKING MOUNTAINS
in this place, Messina,” Lucky announced later that afternoon when he sauntered into our cell.

Walking over to where I was lying on my bed, he slipped his hand into his pants before tossing half a dozen packs of cigarettes on my lap. “You did some number on Campbell,” he said, grinning. “Poor fucker’s still pissing blood.”

“He needs to learn how to rein in his emotions,” I told my cellmate. “The guy fights with his feelings. That’s never a good thing.”

“It’s a good thing for us,” Lucky shot back with a shit-eating grin on his face as he crouched down and pulled the small bottle of amber liquid out of his sock. “It’s a fucking great thing for us.”

“I’ll be in the weight room,” I told him, refusing the bottle when Lucky offered me a sip. Grabbing the packets, I shoved them into the hole in the side of my mattress before climbing to my feet and heading down the corridor to the only release I needed.

“YOU SAID IN,” NOAH WHISPERED
as he held himself above me, smiling down at me. “You said you’re in love with me.”

My cheeks reddened. “Yeah, so?”

“That’s the most important word.”
Noah bent his head and pressed his lips to mine. “And for what it’s worth, my in belongs to you,” he whispered.

“It does?” I asked, barely breathing as my heart hammered in my chest.

“Of course.” Noah scorched me with a kiss that ignited a fire that burned a hole right through the center of my heart. “You’re my Thorn,” he rasped between kisses. “If you leave me, I’ll bleed out.”

We were lying on my bed in Uncle Max’s house. Noah had his arm wrapped around my shoulders and I had never felt so safe.

Twisting onto my side, I curled into him and smiled. “I’m glad you feel that way,” I admitted, biting down on my lip to stop myself from grinning like a lunatic. I couldn’t help it. He made me that happy. The thuggish boy next door had well and truly won me over. I knew I would never be the same again. Noah Messina would forever own me. Heart and soul. “I want you to need me.” Stretching up, I pressed a soft kiss to his lips. “I want to be the one to make you fall apart – to make that hard exterior crack clean open.”