Holding The Line: A romantic suspense that will get your pulse racing. Kierney Scott

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СКАЧАТЬ raised her hand to cut him off. “Don’t interrupt me. You said you wanted to talk. Well I’m talking, Torres. So now I am torn. I feel like he just reached into my chest and ripped out my heart. I say he but I mean you, Torres. You hurt me. I hurt for a long time.” She closed her eyes. “I want to hate you.” She shook her head. “No, I need to hate you. But I see you and I want to hold you and want to know every single detail so I can feel them too. I want to know what you went through. I just want to be able to give you comfort because when I see you in pain I can feel it and I need it to stop. I need it to stop, Torres.”

      “Oh Christ, Beth. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

      “No. Don’t. It’s too late for apologies.” She took a long sip of wine.

      Torres shook his head. “It’s not too late. It’s never too late until one of us dies. It’s not too late to fix this, to fix us.” Torres stood and crossed to her. “It’s not too late.”

      “Everything has changed, Torres.” The tears were threatening to spill from her eyes. She took another drink to numb herself. “I’m a mom now.” There was so much she could tell him but it would be cruel. She wished he could just understand without her having to spell out what she had done.

      Torres smiled. Only half of his face rose.

      Beth closed her eyes. “Don’t do that. I missed that,” she admitted. “No one smiles like you.”

      “I can’t help smiling, Beth. You make me happy even when things are shit between us, I’m still happy to be around you. I smile because I’m happy to be in the same room with you again. I’ve wanted this for a long time, just to be in the same room as you. And I love that you adopted Alejandra. I don’t know why I was surprised. Of course you would adopt her. That’s just you. That’s why I am smiling. You’re a good woman.”

      His words tore through her like shrapnel. “I’m really not.” Beth finished her glass of wine and then poured another before she set the bottle down on the floor. Tomorrow her head was going to hurt like hell but tonight she might just achieve numb. “I really wish you knew how far off the mark you are. There are things I could tell you.”

      Torres put his hand on her. His palm was rougher than she remembered, even more callused. Her skin warmed under his touch. “Don’t tell me then. I don’t need to know. You need the lies you tell yourself; maybe I need mine too. You’ve moved on, I know. I see it, I don’t need to hear about it.”

      “Please don’t stand so close to me.” She couldn’t breathe. He was too close. She remembered this, his smell, the way she was drawn to him even when she fought it. There was a safe zone with him, where rationality prevailed, but once he was close, all higher reason broke down and she was propelled by something primal. “Torres. We can’t go back.”

      Beth stood. She needed to create space between them again. But instead of moving further away, Torres used the opportunity to close the gap between them. “I don’t want to go back,” he assured her.

      His breath was hot on her neck. She shivered at the sensation. Her fingers itched to reach out and touch him. My God how she wanted to stroke his skin and run her hands through his hair. He was too close for her to think.

      “Things have changed,” she said again.

      Half his mouth rose in a grin. “Not the way I feel. Not the way you make me smile. Not the way my body responds to you.” He stepped closer. She could feel his body pressed against her. He was too close but she wanted him closer.

      For a long moment she couldn’t move. He was so close. Torres was back, here with her. Her lids gently closed as she breathed him in. Her body softened…reflex…muscle memory…instinct.

      But then she remembered.

      Beth pulled away. “No. I can’t do this.” She picked up her glass and took another drink. She wasn’t anywhere close to numb yet. She couldn’t do this. Their time had passed, that bridge had been well and truly burned.

      Torres took the glass from her. “Getting drunk isn’t going to solve anything.”

      Beth clenched her hands into fists to keep herself from reaching for him. He lowered his head and kissed her neck. The caress of his tongue on her delicate flesh sent a bolt of desire to her core.

      She needed to stop.

      But she wanted him.

      She tried to push him away but her arms would not listen. “It might make me feel better.” It might make me want you less.

      He shrugged. “No it won’t. It will just give you something different to feel shitty about.”

      Beth’s eyes flew open. If he only knew. “Trust me, I have plenty to feel shitty about.” She pushed away from him and grabbed her wine glass.

      “Beth, stop it! I’m not going to let you do this to yourself. You’re not even enjoying it. You’re just drinking to get drunk.”

      Beth laughed but there was nothing joyful about the sound. “Now you’re here to save me from my mistakes. Where were you all the other times? Where were you when I let my mom be institutionalized? I needed you then. Where were you?” She threw her head back and downed the contents. Her throat burned.

      “I’m sorry.”

      She held up her hand to cut him off. “No, there is more. You’re back and you think we can go back to the way it was. Before, you would just have to look at me and my panties would come off. That is how it was then. But it can’t ever be that way now. You wouldn’t want me if you knew. Ask me why, Torres!” she demanded.

      “Stop. You’re drunk. Don’t say things you’re going to regret.”

      “Ha! I wish words were all I had to regret,” she scoffed. “Maybe if you had been here, I could have limited my regrets to only stupid drunken words. Where were you when I needed you, Torres?”

      She pushed him. Her hands struck into the solid wall of his chest. He didn’t budge but his strength only served to ignite her smoldering anger. The pain was fresh as the day he left, like acid on a paper cut.

      “Where were you when I was fucking Patterson?!” There, she’d said it. It was out there and she could never take it back.

      Torres’ face changed, went impossibly dark, his eyes glazed over.

      She struck her hands into his chest again. “Where were you? I needed you then.” Beth struck him again. “Say something, you son of a bitch. Where were you all the times I was fucking Patterson?”

      Torres pinned her arms to her sides. “Shut up,” he seethed. His voice was ragged. “Don’t say any more.” His body shook as he tried to control his anger. There had never been any love lost between Torres and Patterson; they hated each other actually. Her partner had been against recruiting Torres from the beginning, he thought he was too unpredictable, too emotionally invested, too much of a liability. And for Torres, any shred of goodwill towards Patterson had been lost when Patterson let Beth take the blame for the ambush in Mexico.

      Beth knew sleeping with Patterson would hurt Torres, more than if she had slept with anyone else. And maybe that is why she picked Patterson. Or maybe because it was because he looked at her the СКАЧАТЬ