Filed To Story: Pretty Poisoned Novel by Elle Mitchell
“I don’t care about her,” I tell him.
And god, it hurts to say that aloud.
I have this voice in my head that, anytime someone starts in on me about how I’m messed up or how I’m not normal, reminds me that I’m not a bad person. And as long as I’m not a bad personas long as I’m not hurting anyoneit shouldn’t matter what I do.
I’m having a hard time reconciling that with how I feel now.
“I still love you, Luca. I think I think I’m really fucked up. Most of the time, I can ignore it. I’m having a hard time ignoring it right now.”
I feel it againthat tightening in my chest, the stinging behind my eyes. I’m going to fucking cryagain. Fuck.
“What are you talking about? There’s nothing wrong with you, Teagan.”
“I hate crying,” I say. “It fucking hurtsit physically fucking hurts like I’m having a fucking heart attackand you always make me cry. I never used to cry.”
“Well, that’s a good thing,” Luca says. “You have to fucking care about something to cry. You know what I did after you left this morning? I cried like a fucking baby, just like I told you I would.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“You know why it hurts you like that?”
I shake my head.
“Because you’re always fighting itit’s unnatural. It’s okay to cry, Teagan.”
“On my life, he did cry,” Declan says. “I saw it.”
I laugh through my tears.
“Hey ” Declan sits on the coffee table across from me and takes my hand. “You’ll be okay, Teagan; I promise. You’ll always have a family; I’ll always take care of you. And Luca, too.” He cradles my face in his hands and wipes under my eyes with his thumbs. His eyes soften as they do sometimes, searching my own. “I I’ll talk to you later.”
He kisses me on the mouth, his lips lingering against mine for seconds before he pulls away.
“Bye, kitten.”
“Bye.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket as I watch him leave.
BLAKELY Just got home. I want you to know that I’m blocking your number. I can’t take this anymore.
I sigh and drop it on the couch beside me.
“So, I guess I’m probably not invited to the wedding anymore,” Luca says.
“I’m not invited to the wedding anymore, either.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I wish I was someone you could bring to a wedding and take home to meet your mom.”
“Do you want to know why I said that earlierabout being fucked up?”
He nods. “Yeah.”
“Because I think you were right this morning. I think I was jealous. I don’t think I’m the kind of girl you can take home to meet your mom. I think I’m the kind you tie up in the basement.”
He smiles. “I’m okay with that. I don’t have a mom, but I do have a basement.”
I laugh and shake my head, then melt into him, burying my tear-streaked face in his chest and breathing in his scent. I missed it all fucking day.
“I like you like this,” I tell him. I take another deep breath and then move so that my head is in his lap and look up at him. “When you’re wearing sweats and a hoodie and your hat backwarddo you know what I call it in my head?”
“No,” he says, stroking my hair. “What?”
“Your normal human costume.”
His chest shakes with laughter before I hear it. “Teagan, that’s so sad!”
“Is it?” I ask. “I don’t know; I kind of like to think of you and Declan as something different. I feel different, too.”
“Well, I like your normal human costume,” he tells me. “A lot.”
“Thank you,” I laugh. “Um, there’s one more thing.”
I take a deep breath and mentally prepare myself to cross a line and break the rules, knowing he might not want to break them with me.
Brady is going to fucking laugh at me.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to share you. I’m too afraid you’ll decide to love someone else, and I only want you to love me.”
He shrugs and says, “That’s fine with me. There’s a hot tub on the roofdo you want to go fuck in it?”
I smile. “Yeah, okay.”
image-placeholder
The clock in the room says it’s just after three in the morning when I slip out of bed. I’ve had a hard time sleeping with Blakely’s words echoing in my headsomething I barely noticed when she said it, but now, I can’t stop thinking about it and what might happen if she decided to tell them or they found out some other way.
Quietly, I cross the hotel suite in just a t-shirt to Declan’s room.
I crawl under the covers with him and brush his hair away from his face. “Declan?” I whisper. “Wake up.”
He opens his eyes, groans, and wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me closer to him.
“Mmm Teagan.” He brings his lips to mine, kissing me. “I’ve missed you so much. It’s been so long since I’ve had you all to myself.” His tongue slides into my mouth, and I wrap my arms around his neck, deepening the kiss before he pulls my lower lip through his teeth.
“I love kissing you,” I tell him. “You’re the best kisser. Your lips are so softsofter than River’s.”
“What’s got you so soft?” he asks, kissing me again. “Hmm? Are you that mad at my brother that you’re actually going to be sweet to me? Does that mean you’re going to let me be sweet to you, too?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“You never let me be good to you,” he says. “You don’t crawl into bed with me and let me tell you how beautiful you are.” He reaches for my hair, twirling one of the curls around his finger, and I can’t breathe. “You don’t let me tell you how pretty I think you look when you let your curls dry like this or that I like the way they look against your bare back when you sleep. Do you have any idea how much I think about you? It’s like you came out of nowhere and sucked the color out of everything else, and now there’s just you. Everything else is ” He pauses, unfurling the tendril wrapped around his finger. He trails his hand down my cheek and brushes his thumb over my lower lip. “Just beige.”
“Declan ”
I can’t breathe when you talk to me like that.
“You’re always sweet to Luca, though. What is it he calls you?”
“Um angel?”
“No, not that onethe other one.”
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.