Give Me Hell (Give Me #4)
Kate McCarthy
“Don’t worry when I fight with you.
Worry when I stop,
Because it means there’s nothing left for us to fight for.”
MAC
Grace and Casey’s party is in full swing. Their loft is a complete crush, leaving me stuck in the kitchen dispensing drinks. I’m busy making small talk but my mind is locked on the pregnancy test I purchased in a fit of panic on the drive here. It’s buried deep inside my Burberry handbag. I haven’t had time to take the test, but I can’t stop thinking about it. At the pharmacy I grabbed the first one I saw and marched it to the counter, chin up like I was going into war and the test was my hand grenade.
When I was young having a baby was always in my distant future, but my entire life changed at seventeen. The life I imagined for myself got knocked off course. Marriage. Family. The white picket fence. A fairy tale—and one that was never meant for me.
I wrap an arm around my belly, wondering if my life is about to change. Are you in there, baby? I glare at my flat stomach. If so, you’re not in the plan.
“Princess?”
The deep, husky tone infiltrates every part of my body. My head lifts and my heart lodges somewhere near the vicinity of my throat. Whiskey-coloured eyes look down at me with concern. I hate that I like seeing it. The way Jake Romero looks at me makes me ache. It always has, and it always will.
“I’m not your princess.”
Not anymore. It’s too late. I wrecked us. There’s only so many times you can glue a broken vase back together. Our pieces don’t fit back together anymore.
Jake ignores my retort. His gaze drops to my arm cradled protectively around my belly. He meets my eyes. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say sharply. My bitchy tone is a defence mechanism; it snaps in place like a rubber band whenever I talk to him. It’s the only way to keep him at an arm’s length, otherwise my hands will reach for him and I won’t be able to let go.
Jake grinds his jaw. He wants to turn and walk away but there’s a pull between us that makes it impossible for him. I know, because I feel it too.
I reach for a fresh beer and twist off the top. Tossing the lid in the nearby bin, I shove it toward him. Jake doesn’t take it and leave the kitchen like I hope he will. Instead, he folds his arms creating bulges of tanned muscle. The coloured ink on his skin intertwines with dark images, forming beautiful works of art that sleeve both his arms. I remember those arms when they were reed thin and bare, when he was a boy on the verge of becoming a man. His hair was longer then. Golden brown strands rested against the back of his neck and fell in his eyes. It was the texture of silk, and I loved running my fingers through it. Gripping it in my fists when he did things to me that I never imagined possible. Jake said he’d always keep it longer just for me, but then I left and the next time I saw him it was buzzed short. It’s been that way ever since.
“Are you sure?” Jake asks before I drown in the memories of who we used to be.
No. And I want to tell him that so very badly that I bite down on my lip to stop the word escaping. His heavy-lidded gaze drops to my mouth and heat flares between my thighs in an instant. Damn him.
“Take the stupid beer,” I growl before I completely lose it.
With a sharp huff, he snatches it from my hand. He sets it on the kitchen counter and his eyes come back to me. Does he even know the heated way he looks at me? It burns me like a brush fire.
“Mac, I …” Jake looks away, swallowing, and rubs a hand over his short buzz of hair. There’s a war inside him. I see it on his face. Indecision. Frustration. Longing. The ache inside me intensifies. His gaze returns and he lets out a deep breath. “We need to start living more separate lives. I can’t …”
The pain of his words are a thousand rusty knives stabbing me straight in the heart.
I ignore the party going on around us and close my eyes for the briefest of seconds. The moment I do, his hand cups my jaw. The barest contact before it slides away. My eyes open, the rough touch of his palm lingering on my skin.
Why can’t I unlove you?
“You’re right,” I force myself to concede.
Jake nods as if pleased with my response, which sends the knives deeper.
I snatch his abandoned beer and tip my head back, filling my mouth with fizzy alcohol. Then it hits me. What if I am actually pregnant? I can’t drink this stuff. It sprays from my mouth like a ruptured fire hydrant. I turn and most of it lands in the sink rather than on Jake’s shirt.
“Mac?” He takes the poor beer from my hand and once again abandons it on the kitchen counter. Then he grips me by the elbow as I’m trying to wipe at my face with a paper napkin. “You’re not okay at all, are you?”
I breathe deep, lost in a sea of nausea and rejection. “Get lost,” I rasp as I toss the bit of towel toward the bin.
“For fuck’s sake,” he spits, his hold on me tightening as he pulls me toward the bathroom. “Can’t you lose the bitch for even a second?”
“No,” I snap as I’m dragged alongside him. “It’s who I am and I’m not asking you to like it. I’m asking you to leave me alone.”
“You heard her,” a deep voice growls from somewhere on my left. “Get lost.”
My hackles rise further. Damn my meddling older brothers. Jared’s green eyes spark fire as he glares at Jake.
“Stop interfering in my business,” I hiss at Jared, poking him in the chest.
Jake smirks at my brother and arches a brow.
Jared’s nostrils flare as he looks from Jake to me. He folds his arms, eyes narrowing on mine. “I wouldn’t need to if you had it handled.”
My fury climbs. “I was handling it, you asshole.”
“Asshole is right,” Jake adds.
I turn to him, mouth agape. “You’re an asshole too! You want to end whatever the hell this is? Consider it ended!” I shout. With the thumping beat bouncing off the walls, no one around us pays any mind, not that I particularly care right now. “Now both of you can just go fuck off!”
I turn and disappear into a sea of people in my need to get away, leaving them to duke it out by themselves. The party has begun to wind down anyway. I’m tasked with dispensing keys to those who are sober, and it keeps me distracted and occupied.
When I’m down to the last set of keys in the bowl, I scan the room and don’t see Jake. Casey’s brother is one of the last to leave. He’s been drinking all night and holds a fresh beer. I’m getting a death stare because the key to his Harley is being held hostage in my hand.
Kelly is a Sentinels biker with dirty blond hair, scary tattoos, and flirty blue eyes. He’s the definition of trouble and so damn hot it rips the air from every room he enters. Even sick as I am, it’s hard not to notice, yet it fails to stir anything inside me. Only Jake has ever managed to do that, and I hate him for it.