“Reese.”
His eyes had taken on a worried light. He started to reach for her. Maybe he would’ve made contact this time, actually touched her, caressed her, but she wrenched herself away from him before either of them could find out.
“I’m fine,” she mumbled.
“You’re not fine.” He cursed under his breath. “Fuck. I knew this would happen the closer we got to executing the plan.”
He’d known, huh? Would’ve been nice if he’d given her a heads-up, then. Over the years she’d told Sloan only the barest amount of details about her childhood in the city. He knew she was born there, knew her mother was a breeder. The rest wasn’t any of his damn business, but Reese would have been naive if she’d believed he hadn’t put some of the other pieces together all by himself.
And goddamn him for always being goddamn right. Getting this close to taking down the people who’d stolen her life from her was stirring up all those old memories.
“Plan’s not going away,” she said. She ground the cigarette into the ashtray in frustration.
“Which is precisely why you should take Rylan up on his offer. You can let off some steam, regain some of your control.”
Yeah, but she needed that control with Rylan too. Together they were too wild, burned too fast. Just like it had been with Jake. No, it was worse. She’d been insatiable with Rylan, and she knew the only thing that kept her sane that night was Sloan there as her rock.
But how many times could she ask Sloan to be there with her when she knew his lust rode under a thin layer of skin? It wasn’t fair to him, and frankly, she could not lose Sloan. She’d rather be celibate than lose him.
So, no, there would be no dipping her toe into the Rylan pool again, even if the mere mention of his name made her core tighten in excited anticipation.
“No,” she said firmly.
“I don’t understand why you’re cutting off your nose here. You couldn’t get enough of him—”
“Christ, Sloan!” Reese exploded. “If you’re so into Rylan, fuck him yourself.” She slapped the pack of cigarettes into his chest and stomped down the hallway to her bedroom.
Sloan didn’t follow. She heard his footsteps at the front door, and a moment later, the door clicked shut.
*
Sloan dug a crumpled cigarette from the pack and stuck it between his lips before he even exited the building. He lit up and stumbled down the cracked sidewalk toward . . . toward who the hell knew where. He had no idea what he was doing.
Goddamn her.
No other woman had ever gotten under his skin the way Reese did. He’d fallen in love with her from the moment he’d laid eyes on her, but sometimes he wondered if he hated her as much as he loved her.
He hated the way she made his heart pound.
Hated that just the sound of her voice could get him hard.
Hated that she thought she had to be strong for him.
Most of all, he hated that she’d picked Jake. That she’d asked Jake to rule alongside her. That she’d spent her nights tangled up in Jake’s bed.
She’d fucking picked Jake.
Sloan drew a cloud of nicotine into his lungs, holding it in until his chest ached. The smoke sputtered out on a harsh cough, and he walked even faster, eventually making his way to the redbrick building that housed the town infirmary. Frank, one of their medics, had mentioned that the generator down there was acting up. Sloan had planned on checking it tomorrow morning, but screw it. Might as well do it now. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do.
Resentment burned a path up his throat. He should have better things to do. In fact, he should be balls deep in someone right now, instead of withering away in self-imposed celibacy.
Three years. He hadn’t had his dick in a woman in almost three years. Not since the blade of his knife had sliced a clean line across his best friend’s throat—
He pushed the memory aside as hard as he pushed open the door of the building. His boots thudded on the tiled floor as he stalked toward the stairwell.
He couldn’t keep doing this to himself. This torturous self-punishment had to end. His uncontrollable desire, his all-consuming love for Reese . . . it had to end.
The problem was, there wasn’t a single female in this whole town that interested him. When Jake was alive—when Jake was with Reese—Sloan had turned to Cassie for comfort. The quiet brunette had lost her man not long after they’d settled in Foxworth; Ken had died from pneumonia, and Cassie had grieved hard for him.
Sloan knew she was pretending he was Ken when they were in bed together, but that was fine, because he was pretending she was Reese. The arrangement had worked because they were both using each other. But Cassie was off-limits now. He couldn’t even look at her without remembering what Jake had done to her.