Concede (The Diamond Empire Book 1) Kathy Coopmans (good beach reads .TXT) 📖

tempted me until everything inside me shook. I stood in front of the sink, struggling like a man gone mad. Christ, I wanted it, wanted to chug it and let it burn through me like liquid fire even if I can’t stand the taste of the shit.

It won’t be easy living in this city, doing my job while men drink around me. The first rule of thumb for a recovering alcoholic is to stay away from it. But I’m looking at it as a test to my nerves. All it took was thinking about rehab, and I straightened my shit out. No fucking way am I going back to that dark place.

Rehab about did me in. I wanted to fucking kill myself.

I said things I didn’t mean to people who wanted to help me. I didn’t eat or drink a thing for days. Plotted ways to kill faceless people in my warped mind.

I told everyone who stepped into my room to get the fuck out, or I’d strangle them. I talked to the four walls, paced the floor. Hallucinating, digging, and clawing away at my skin, just dying for a sip of alcohol. I lay in bed for days fighting the urge to walk out of there and drop off the end of the earth somewhere.

Pathetic excuse of a man.

One morning I woke to realize I might not be a good man, and I’ll never be. Yet, when I laid there with my family’s faces flashing through my mind. The hell I put them through, I got out of bed, went to see my counselor, and of course, lied through my teeth as our sessions got deeper into why I turned to alcohol in the first place.

It was drilled into me throughout that time what could happen to my body if I went back to the bottle. Damn lucky it didn’t fry my liver or my brain.

I won’t allow Victoria to turn to that wicked shit for a crutch. Alcohol and grief have a tragic, all-too-common relationship and the only one she’ll be having is with me. The drinking ends, or she’ll find herself tied to the bed while I torture her for nothing but my pleasure.

Victoria grabs a mug, and slams it under the coffee machine, puts a pod in place, and jabs at the button repeatedly as if that will make her fix come out any faster. I take the opportunity to draw close, to press my chest against her back, my hands on those hips, and drop my mouth to her ear.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going? It’s snowing out there.” It’s a blizzard. Colder than a witch’s tit. Blowing snow and below zero temps. The only thing I’ll never get used to in this city.

Victoria’s body tenses, which I don’t like at all, still, she’s going to answer my question. She has no choice. I won’t let her walk out the door looking like that.

Fuck what Theo thinks or says when he gets here.

“No shit, Sherlock, this is New York. We get snow, and sometimes several feet all in a matter of hours. Maybe you should move south of the border. As far away from me as you can get.”

“Cute. Not going anywhere, Victoria. Neither are you.” I grin. Nothing turns me on more than her sassy mouth. Except maybe when the time comes where she says my name. “Now, answer my question.”

Slamming her hands against the counter, she whirls on me, enough to stumble me back a step. Her lips set in a thin line. Pure fire behind her stare, and goddamn if it doesn’t make me want to plant her on the counter, kiss her in a way that reminds her who she belongs to.

Instead, because I’m sure she’d bite my tongue off, I lean forward, grab her hips again, our mouths only inches apart.

Her lids flutter, lips parting, and making me want to devour her.

“I don’t have to answer you, now back the fuck off.”

She gets a free pass on swearing this one time. She might be slowly conceding to the dark side, but her soul and spirit are too flawless for trash talk.

Unless I’m balls deep inside her.

”I need to know where you are at all times.”

Not like I won’t know where she is, her phone has a tracking device. It’s now connected to mine. It’s not like she won’t be the only thing on my mind when she’s out of my sight either.

Cause she will be.

I might be the one backing her into a corner, but she’s the one who holds me captive.

Trapped.

Held hostage by the need to own her, not crush her as she thinks. She needs to flourish, get rid of the things she’s locked tight, and spread those wings.

“I might have just been naïve when it comes to you. However, I’m not stupid. There’s a tracking device on my phone. Maybe if you paid more attention to your new job and stop trying to ruin me, you’d know that. I’m not going anywhere. There, are you satisfied? Can you move along now?”

Touché, I think, but no, I’m not even close to being satisfied. As I said, I won’t apologize when I’m the only person who can see the show she’s putting on. The pretending to be okay when she’s so far from it. She keeps it up, and it won’t be long before she believes her lies.

She’s good at lying, but I’m better at seeking them out. She’s lying to everyone and herself.

I get wanting to protect those she loves. It makes me realize how much she’s like me in that way, but she doesn’t have to wear a mask of protection with me.

“I know a lot more about you than you think. I told you that. Don’t make me repeat it. Tell me. Are you afraid to give me all of you out of fear something will happen to me when I walk out the door? That’s how you felt when you were growing up