Filed To Story: Pretty Poisoned Novel by Elle Mitchell
I shake my head. “No. I’d go anywhere as long as I get to be with you and Luca.”
He traces my jawline with his fingertips. “Even if it’s forever, and you can never go back?”
“Yeah,” I tell him. “I’m ready. I just want to go to the wedding first if I can.”
“Let’s go upstairs. We’ll talk about the details, okay, baby?”
I nod. “Okay.”
He brushes my hair away from my face and kisses my lips, then turns my head to the side. “You see that man over there by the door? Big guy with the sunglasses on?”
“Yeah.”
“He works for me,” he says. “He’s going to be following us, okay? Nothing to worry about.”
I reach into my dress and pull my knife out, leaving it folded in my palm. “I just feel better if I carry it anyway,” I say.
“You still have that?” he asks. He takes my free hand when I step down from the barstool.
“Sebastian got it back for me.”
“Hmm and you’re sure he doesn’t love you?”
“Yeah,” I tell him as we round the corner of the building. “I’m sure.”
“Okay, kitten,” he says, kissing the top of my head. “If you say so.”
“I do say so. You weren’t there.”
“I know, Teag. You don’t have to remind me.”
I stop and turn to him, shaking my head. “That’s not what I meant, I just”
He cuts me off, cupping my cheeks in his hands and pressing his lips to mine. “You don’t owe me any explanation. You look really pretty; I bet you heard that all night, though, didn’t you?”
I shake my head again. “No, Declan. No one talks to me like that.”
“Idiots,” he says against my lips. He leans in and kisses me again, deeper this time. His hands run down my back to the swell of my ass before he bites my lip and pulls away.
“We need to get upstairs, Teagan,” he says, moving his mouth to my ear. “Or I’m going to bend you over this staircase, and you’ll end up screaming my name and everyone will know I’m here.”
We walk hand-in-hand up a dark side staircase to my room on the third floor. Luca sits on the bed shirtless with the television on and a few empty mini liquor bottles on the side table.
“Hey, baby,” he says when I walk through the door. “Look, I made it to your bitch sister’s wedding after all. Do you think she’ll be happy to see me? I wrote a song about her, too, but I don’t think she’ll like it.”
I cover my face with my hands and laugh. “Oh, god. Yeah, Luca, I think she’d love that.”
“All of the other songs I’ve written are about you, angel,” he says.
“Don’t hurt yourself,” I tell Luca when he climbs out of bed.
“You don’t tell me what to do. I’ll fuck that bossy mouth of yours and teach you that lesson again if I have to,” he says. He kisses me on the forehead and then throws me over his shoulder.
“Luca, stop!”
“What’d I tell you?”
Smack.
“Ow!” I shout. “Damn it, Luca!”
“Dude, seriously,” Declan says. “You’re going to fucking hurt yourself. Put the baby down.”
“Fine.” He sits on the edge of the bed and pulls me into his lap, holding me tightly against his body with my back to his chest. “You look really pretty, baby,” he says, kissing my neck. “I missed you so much. You know what I did when we had to leave you in Vegas?”
I shake my head. “No, what?”
“I fucking cried.”
“He threw a whole ass tantrum,” Declan says. “I should have roofied his ass, too.”
“That was rude,” I tell him. “Where have you been anyway?”
“Here,” Declan says. “In Mexico, waiting for you. We can move more easily here. I was always coming back for you, Teagan. But after everything that happened, the deal was always stay out, stay away, and stay alive.”
“But why?” I ask.
“Because if we got caught, they’d have to kill usjust in case. And we’re too well-known to risk it.”
“Well, what’s the plan then?”
“Remember the man from downstairs?”
“Yeah ”
“He’s going to find you during the wedding reception tomorrow and bring you to us, and we’re going to get on a plane, and it’ll take us to Venezuela, and then we’ll get on another plane and get the fuck out of here forever, Teagan.”
“And we’ll take care of you forever, baby,” Luca says.
“You make it sound like it’ll be so easy,” I say. “It wasn’t easy last time.”
Just hearing the word “plane” come out of his mouth takes me back to that abandoned airfield and the worst day of my life. My heart rate elevates, my palms begin to sweat I wring my hands in front of me, hoping to smother the panic attack I’m teetering on the edge of out of existence.
“It’ll be easy,” Declan assures me. He removes his hat and glasses, setting them on the table beside the television, and then runs his fingers through dark hair much longer than I’m used to seeing, but I guess it’s probably easier to hide behind. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Breathe, Teagan,” Luca says. “You’re not breathing, baby.”
Declan closes the space between us and covers my hands with his. “What’s going on in there, kitten?”
You’re going to leave me again. This is a trick.
I can’t say that, so I just shake my head.
“I didn’t let you jump, Teagan,” he says. “Even though it made my dick hard seeing you like that. I won’t leave youI’ll die first. I’ve already lost everything else.”
It’s crazy to think how different everything was just four months agohow one decision can alter the course of multiple lives forever. There are so many places where, if we’d just done one thing differently, we wouldn’t be here right now. They’d be working on their next album and getting ready for a new tour. I’d be at home in the mountains with River and Hazel, and Brady and Rhett would still be alive.
He pulls his shirt over his head and then kneels in front of me, pressing my hand against the ‘T’ carved into his chest.
“Look me in the eyes and tell me I’m lying, Teagan,” he says.
I shake my head again. “I have a hard time telling the difference between what’s real and what isn’t.”
“We’re going to help you with that, too, sweetheart.”
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.