Havoc by Stella Rhys

smirked at my professional tone before walking toward the empty end of the bar and casually nodding for me to follow.  I heard the buzz of whispers behind me as I did so.  God, I hated how much this man kept me guessing – how often he had me questioning myself to the brink of insanity.  My heart beat out of my chest when we finally stood face to face, in plain view but out of earshot from anyone else.
    “Hi,” was all he said.  I shook my head at him.
    “Hi,” I returned harshly.
    He took a drink.  He was in no rush to speak and I hated that.  He forced me to just watch him as he took a coaster off the bar and set it down before putting his glass neatly on top.  “I don’t know what you might be thinking right now,” he finally said, his words measured,  “and I don’t owe you an explanation but I can’t seem to sit at that table for much longer knowing that you’re watching me and getting the wrong idea, so I’m going to give you one.”
    “You were fingering another girl in front of the entire room and she’s waiting for your cock in the bathroom right now.  What else do I need to know?” I demanded, trying but failing to be unemotional.  “That you plan on saying all the same words to her that you said to me? ‘ You drive me crazy, I can’t stop wanting you .’  I’m guessing that’s what you tell every girl you fuck right before she makes you come.”
    “Isla, I am working right now,” Abram finally snarled.  “This crowd, this night – none of it is coincidence.  I’m not here right now because I’m interested in watching a fight, I’m here because I have business to do and in case you didn’t assume, it has everything to do with why you ran into me with a dead fucking body in that alley, so the fact that I’m even here giving you this explanation right now is astounding to me because this is everything I knew I needed to avoid.  But like I said, it’s not your fault,” he said between gritted teeth.  “The mistake was solely mine.”
    I stared, speechless.  “I am deeply sorry that you ever made the mistake of giving a shit about me.”
    “So am I.”
    My jaw dropped at his cruel words.  Tears stung my eyes but as I walked away, he grabbed my arm and snarled.
    “I don’t think you understand me.”
    I fought him.  “What the fuck else do I need to understand, Abram?”
    “That my eyes follow you everywhere you fucking go, Isla, even when I don’t want them to,” he muttered intensely under his breath.  When I tried to look away he held my jaw.  “I’m sure you think I haven’t looked at you once but the fact is that I nearly fucking passed out when you walked into this room.  I’ve watched you all night.  I saw every time you fixed your top, talked with Rhode.  I saw you when you bent down too far and could barely get up because of how tight that skirt is wrapped around your perfect fucking body.  I saw when you rolled your eyes at Nate, when you dropped all your napkins and I have fucking whiplash in my neck from watching your ass twitch all the way to the bar, every fucking time.”  He pulled me closer, his eyes blazing.  “I have blood on my hands and the most dangerous men in the city who are going to be hunting me like prey the second they find out what I did.  This is the most important moment of my life so yes, I wish I could’ve gone back in time and never met you, the same way you’d erase the fact that you watched a man die if you could.  But it’s all happened.  I’m not going to forget you at this point and I can’t sit at that table for another second acting like I don’t see you when you’re the only thing I can ever fucking see.”
    The air drained from my lungs.  I was breathless .  There was so much I wanted to say yet I couldn’t make a sound.   But I didn’t have to.  Pulling me into him, Abram kissed me hard amid the raucous and chaos, in front of everyone, pulling away with the urgency of life or death in his