Passion and Ink (Sweetest Taboo) by Naima Simone

Author:Naima Simone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Entangled; Scorched; Contemporary Romance; Contemporary Romance Fiction; Romantic Erotica; Taboo romance, erotic romance, pseudo-incest, forbidden love, stepbrother romance, tattoo artist, Gritty Romance; Emotional Romance; Taboo romance, erotic romance, pseudo-incest, forbidden love, stepbrother romance, tattoo artist,
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC (Scorched)
Published: 2019-01-24T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Jude

I don’t want to live without you. Don’t make me live without you.

Ana’s pleas as I forced her into her car chase me down the block. They dog me, snapping at my heels, the back of my neck. Burrowing under my skin and sinking their teeth into flesh and bone. I can’t outrun them. I can’t dig them out of my brain.

So maybe I can drown them out.

I jerk open the front door to a bar, and even though it’s only eight o’clock, more than half of the tables and booths are filled, and the bar is busy. The owner tried modernizing the place a few years back with fancy lighting behind the bar, switching out the scarred tables and ladderback chairs with sleeker models of both, mounting flat-screen TVs permanently fixed to ESPN, and replacing the jukebox with a PA system that played 97.1 FM, The Drive, one of the local rock stations. But the odor of old-school dive bar continues to linger with the working pay phone still hanging near the exit, the condom dispenser in the bathrooms, and the to-go cups for booze.

Slipping onto one of the few empty stools, I wait for the bartender to head my way. Should I be here when I’m on the clock at the shop for another four or five hours, depending if any walk-ins come in? Hell no. Knox is probably cursing my ass out right now, but with Ana’s sobs and subtle threat ringing in my head like the bells of St. Helen’s, I don’t care. I’ve already disappointed him once today by bringing my personal issues into the shop and disturbing business—again. Getting a shot of something inside me so it dulls the ache, slurs the words, eases the panic grabbing at me—that’s my main, and only, concern.

Goddamn. What is taking that bartender so long?

After thrusting my fingers through my hair, I prop my elbows on the bar top and bow my head into my hands.

My eyes close, but almost immediately, I open them again. Because with them shut, I can still feel Ana’s slender body shaking with the force of her cries against me. Can still hear the pain in her voice as she pleads with me to tell her I still love her, that she can’t go on without me. An old image waves before my eyes like a black-and-white photo. Black and white except for the dark crimson streaks of blood on skin and bathroom tiles. I swallow hard, heart thudding against my chest. Every time Ana says those words that carry the hint of a threat, I’m tumbling back to the worst, scariest moment of my life. What if Ana…? It would be my fault.

A phantom hand reaches out, grabs me by the throat, its skeletal fingers squeezing …

My breath wheezes in and out of my constricted lungs, and obsidian smoke starts creeping in on the edges of my peripheral vision. Goddamn, no. Not here. Not now.

But no amount of begging or willing the panic attack to disappear causes it to ease.

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