Screw it.

Throwing off a sweaty, black T-shirt in exchange for a clean, black v-neck, I snatched my keys off the bedside table and bounded down the stairs.

“I’m heading out for a while,” I said as I passed my mother in the kitchen. “See you Monday.”

My hands shook, even though I’d been coming here nearly a year already. I hated looking the f**ker in the face, especially when he made these visits as awful as possible. I knew he got special privileges for cooperating, but I had no doubt that he enjoyed every sick word that came out of his mouth, too.

“It’s Friday. I’m not supposed to have to see you until tomorrow,” he grumbled, sitting down at the table in the visiting room.

I forced myself to look him in the eye and even out my tone. “You’re calling Jax again. It stops now.”

He laughed me off. “That’s what you said last time, but you’re not in control, Jared.”

Yes. I. Am.

“You’re not even allowed to make calls.” After I reported it to the warden last time, he’d lost the privilege of making unsupervised trips to the phone.

Shrugging his shoulders with palms up, he answered, “And yet, I find a way.”

It was only a moment. But in the time it took for my chest to sink and for me to break eye contact, he knew. He knew he was right, and that I was powerless. Maybe it was the guards letting him make calls for favors, or maybe he had a fellow prisoner helping him out, but we both knew there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop him.

I could never stop him.

“Leave him alone.” My lips moved, but I barely heard my own voice.

“What bugs you more?” He leaned in and narrowed his blue eyes. “That I call him and not you, or that you can’t stop me? I keep telling you, Jared, you have no power. Not really. It may seem like you’re the one in control, because you’re out there and I’m in here, but I’m the one that haunts you. Not the other way around.”

I stood up and stuck my hand in my pocket, gripping the fossil necklace so hard that I thought it would break.

“Fuck you,” I growled and walked out.

Chapter 9

“Oh, Jared,” Piper gasped my name as I devoured her neck. Gripping her hair and pulling her head back, I tried to get lost in her perfume and her body.

“I told you not to talk,” I whispered softly against her skin. “Do as you’re told.”

Hats off to the Bull pounded downstairs, and I could hear voices coming from all sides, both inside and outside the house.

Piper had come over to my party, uninvited, and I took what was offered. Noise, activity, distraction.

Distraction from the pull next door.

Distraction from my father.

That son of a bitch was right after all. The nightmares that kept me awake? The ones I had to drown out with sleeping pills just so I could get through the night? All of it was me being weak.

“I’m sorry,” she giggled. “That just feels so good.”

I had one hand buried in her thick, dark hair, and my other hand inside of her panties, my fingers pushing inside of her as she squirmed against the wall of my bedroom.

I grappled at Piper, looking for the magical body part that would get me zoned in. I peeled down the top of her dress, cupping her br**sts, kissing her lips, but none of it brought me the peace I wanted.

I’m hoping Jared has forgotten all about me.

I grabbed Piper and hauled her up into my arms, carrying her to the bed. The peace would come when I was inside of her. Then I would be happily lost.

“Jared!” I jerked my head towards the pounding on the door.

“Go away!” I shouted as Piper unfastened my belt.

“That girl? Tate?” my friend, Sam, asked. “She’s downstairs, man. You better get down there.”

And I halted what I was doing and sat up.

“What the hell?” I mumbled.

Why was she at my house? I looked at the alarm clock that read after midnight.

“Tate?” Piper said, still laying back on the pillows. “I thought you said she was still gone.”

I climbed off the bed. “Just get dressed, Piper,” I bit out.

“What?” she screamed, and I looked over at her. Her lips and nose were scrunched up, and her chest rose and fell with her hard breathing.

Piper was no attachment and no complications. I appreciated that about her.

But she was pissed, and I didn’t stop to explain. I never did. She knew better.

I never let on that I wanted more than a casual thing, and she’d either roll with it, or she could leave.

Yanking the door open, my friend Sam waited in the hallway, hands in pockets and looking uncertain.

“Sorry, man.” He held up his hands. “Madoc’s got his hands all over her. Thought I should get you.”

Fucking little shit. I barreled past Sam and down the hallway, ready to stick my best friend’s head into the toilet to wake him the f**k up. I was pretty sure he had a thing for Tate, but he was told, years ago, that she was off limits.

And what the f**k was she doing here anyway?

Coming down the stairs, I rounded the corner and immediately stopped, my stomach caving in from the loss of breath.

Jesus Christ.

She was so beautiful it hurt.

She was lost in thought, otherwise she would’ve seen me, too.

I pressed my hands above my head to both sides of the doorframe. It was my way of trying to look casual, like I didn’t care. But honestly, I just needed the support to keep my legs from caving beneath me.