"Where the hell are you?" I swore at the damn girl while scanning the room with laser focus.

The house wasn't very large and there were limited places Riley could have run off to hide. Usually when we had people over, Sean kept half the rooms locked down tight because of all the side hustles he operated inside the four walls. A chill ran down my spine and I shuddered as I envisioned the stunned expression on Riley's face if she accidentally stumbled upon Sean's warehouse of drugs. She wouldn't be prepared for the things she would encounter and the questions it would raise.

Riley would figure out my secret addiction before I had the chance to get it back under control again.

I couldn't let that happen.

I spent another ten minutes walking the perimeter of the whole house, only to end up right back where I started my night—next to a smirking Sean, emptying the last contents of a bottle into his cup.

"No luck?" He chuckled and raised his glass to his mouth in jest. The jerkoff was finding humor in my absolute impatience with the pint-sized blond.

"No." I sighed out in frustration as my shoulders fell in defeat.

Leaving my side and navigating the party on her own was a terrible mistake. Riley always made the worst decisions when she was drinking and upset. Flashes of the night when I found her almost completely passed out on the table with that pink-haired guy between her legs left an uneasy knot in the bottom of my stomach.

What if the same thing happened to her again tonight because of me? What if this time I was too late to stop it?

This place wasn't safe for Riley. I should have never convinced Brynn to bring her here.

I studied every face in the room around me. Each and every one of them began to morph into the same cotton-candy haired asshole that attacked Riley. There was a guy just like him near the stairs, already holding up a drunken blond girl by her arms. She was curled into his chest and looked up at him sweetly, batting her long eyelashes with a dopey smile.

It was my girl.

"Are you fucking serious?" I cursed out and grabbed my hair to pull it.

"Oop...she works faster than I thought. Good luck, Ez. You got your hands full tonight." Sean snorted under his breath and walked away, leaving me struggling to contain the boiling rage inside.

The devil in front of Riley was playing it casually cool as he stared back into her eyes. But, I knew what he wanted from her—not one person with working eyeballs could look and Riley and not want her. She was gorgeous, perfect from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.

The jackass next to her motioned his head towards the stairs to get her to follow him up and she nodded eagerly.

"Don't go, Riley. Don't go upstairs with him." My brain raced as I helplessly watched her slipping away from me.

The plastered girl rubbed the guy's chest and walked around him seductively, holding onto his shirt until she found her way to the first step. She braced herself against the wall and used it to keep the room from spinning.

The asshole lifted his eyes up and down over Riley's body, studying her full curves as she climbed and swayed from side to side. Her criminally short dress swung back and forth and rode up as she clung onto the banister for dear life.

Unbeknownst to Riley, she was performing on the main stage and was the headliner of the show tonight. The oblivious girl had captured the attention of every single guy in the room. The whole crowd below her had a perfect view of her juicy cheeks sneaking out from underneath the flowing black fabric.

My dick ached and pulsed each time her dress shifted higher and higher. One more step and I was going to have to change my boxers—and so was every other guy she had under her spell. They were bewitched, oohing and awing at her like her ass was made of diamonds and covered in cocaine.

That was my ass they were gawking at. It belonged to me.

I shoved every bastard I could reach out of the way to get over to Riley before anyone could lay a hand on her.

The same guy was still standing there looking up her dress as her intoxicated body fought with gravity. Riley began tilting back like she was about to fall directly into his arms. He reached out expectantly with a smile, ready to enjoy his night.

I balled up my fist and swung it directly into the back of the guy's skull without even one ounce of remorse. His limp body dropped to the floor, letting out a loud snore. My knuckles were throbbing and congratulating me on a job well done when I jumped over his motionless body. I caught the blond right before she tumbled down the stairs and cracked her head open.

My hands nestled securely under Riley's armpits, unable to latch on to anything else. She was dead weight in my arms, not even helping me stand her back up on her feet.

Riley was trashed.

"Let go of me." She swatted at me lazily and sunk down even lower.

I rolled my eyes and started to lift her over the next step. I struggled more than I thought I would to get her moving. Riley was quite a bit lighter than before, but I wasn't very steady on my feet either in my current state. Fortunately, I turned Sean down when he offered me a little more of the blend from this morning or my current situation would have been much worse.

Both of us would have needed someone to carry us to my room if I was any higher.

When we finally reached the top of the stairs, I was basically dragging Riley between my legs because hers stopped working properly. A few people in the hall gaped at the scene in front of them, but they shrugged it off and went back to minding their own business when my cold glare shut them down immediately.

No one would stop me from getting my girl to my room, where it was safe. They would have ended up at the bottom of the stairs like that dumbass who thought he could take her from me.

I pulled Riley up to her clumsy feet and managed to walk her inside my room. I shut the door and locked it behind us—partly to keep others out, but mostly to keep her in.

I pulled the beautiful girl's tiny body close to me and held her up by her waist. She kept sliding down my torso, unable to bear her own weight. Riley stayed silent the whole time, staring up at me with her haunting green eyes. She started breathing faster and faster when her hands found my chest and worked their way down my stomach towards the top of my jeans.

Riley's hands on me had me losing my mind. I knew she was entirely out of it and now wasn't the right time to do this, but I couldn't help the way her presence was affecting me.

I closed my eyes and threw my head back, trying to slow myself down, when she sealed the deal by rubbing her body against mine and whining for more.

Fuck it—I needed this girl now just as much as she needed me.

We could talk tomorrow.

I forced her back against my dresser and lifted her up by her hips. She looked down where her knees were together and then back up to my eyes, inviting me back between them for the first time in nine months. I spread her thighs, getting the first peek at the center of her itty bitty black panties.

"I love you, Riley. I knew you would come back to me." My mouth and whole body burst into flames as I tasted every inch of her it could land. Riley opened her legs wider.  I buried the sound of my pleasure into her skin when my dick lightly brushed against her center.

I leaned back, fighting the urge to come right then and there. I ran my tongue on the inside of my lip, playing with my ring and warming it up for a long night.

Riley had on these little stockings connected by these little hooks things. I could already see her writhing on my bed in them with nothing else on. My head would be buried between her thighs very soon, watching her soft fingertips pinch and tug on her nipples as I fucked her needy little pussy repeatedly with my tongue.

Riley had it all panned out when she decided to come to see me tonight. Brynn told her I would be here tonight and she came to deliver me a present.

"Ezra, I want to leave." Riley looked around nervously like she was afraid someone would walk in and catch us.

If Riley would rather go back to her place tonight, I would leave without a second thought. Whatever it took to be with her again would be worth it, even if I had to wait a few more minutes to have it.

"I'll take you anywhere you want to go, baby." I bent down and went straight to the spot on her neck that always made her moan for me.

I placed my hand on Riley's shaking thigh and wrapped my arm around her back to pull her closer. The little strap on her leg stretched when she moved and I snuck my finger under it playfully.

I slid my finger up the strap, teasing her by letting it snap back down. She sucked in her lip and shivered with the sting. I grew increasingly impatient as I fumbled to maneuver her around to pull her dress up over her ass to get a better look at her beautiful body.

"Did you wear this for me? You are such a good girl. Let me see." I praised her, already knowing the answer.

"You do not get to touch me," Riley screamed and shoved me back the second my middle finger wiggled inside her panties. I barely caught myself in time as I stuttered back in shock and stared in disbelief at the panting girl.

Why was Riley playing head games with me?

Seconds ago, she was coming apart, moaning and rubbing her body against mine. Now her stare was hard—locked and loaded.

Riley was ready to go to war.

I was so fucking pissed at her. Why did she come here tonight for me if she was going to spend the whole night throwing an attitude at me? I know how terribly I screwed up, but she showed up here because she was giving me another chance to make it right.

Or did she? Was this all an act she had concocted to make me suffer more?

"You came to my place wearing that little dress. Now you are in my fucking room with your legs open. What did you think was going to happen?" My dick was using me like a puppet to complain about the stabbing pain shooting through my balls.

"I didn't know this was your place. I didn't even know you would be here. I would have never come to this party if I thought I would have to see you again. I don't want anything to do with you!" She screamed at me with tears in her eyes.

I was at a loss.

Brynn had promised me that she would tell Riley I would be here tonight and wanted her to come to talk to me. I knew Riley wasn't lying about not knowing I was here because she didn't look away and her eyes didn't flicker anxiously. She really had no clue I was here and wasn't leading me into a trap to exact her revenge.

But none of it mattered at this exact moment because all I could focus on was that she said she didn't want anything to do with me.

"Riley, don't fucking say that. You don't mean it." I pleaded with her to take it back.

"Please leave me alone." Her lip quivered. We both knew she didn't really mean what she was saying. She was just as lonely as I had been and it was written all over her face.

"I need you, beautiful. I'm dying without you." Tears leaked from my eyes as I latched onto her again. I wanted to touch her and hold every part of her I could reach. I kissed her skin as I cried into her, pleading with her to let me back in.

I was so fucking sorry for everything.

Riley pushed me away again, much softer than the first time—but it was enough to break me. She resituated her dress on her body, shutting me out and ending the conversation.

"I said, do not touch me." She whimpered out.

Riley grabbed her stomach and held the dress to her. She was clutching it the same way she did the night of the accident, right before we lost the baby—before I lost her and my only reason to keep fighting.

Blood—there was so much fucking blood covering her.

Riley's blood—our baby's blood—it covered her body, painted on by my hands.

No. No. No. Please let me take it back, Beautiful.

I just wanted the nightmare to end.

I scratched and pulled at myself while the blood poured down her legs and onto the dresser until it hit the floor. I tried to rip my eyes open to wake myself up as she cradled the dead thing inside.

"Don't fucking do that. Don't you dare throw that back in my face right now." I screamed at her as loud as I could to get her to stop.

It wasn't ok. I wasn't ok.

Our baby wasn't there anymore. I killed our baby that night.

I did it, it was all my fault.

"You may be able to run away from it without looking back, but I can't. The emptiness is always with me. It never goes away. It's all I have left." Riley bit back hard, ripping my throat out.

"Fuck!" I yelled out as the pain exploded behind my eyes.

I clawed at them, trying to get it to stop and the images to go away. If I blinded myself, I wouldn't be able to see them again. I would never see the pain I caused her.

Riley let out a slight sniffle she was trying to hold back. She was still sitting on the dresser, her face blotchy and covered with her tears. The fragile girl wanted me to help her when I didn't even know how to help myself. I felt so far away from her, outside my body, and lost.

I felt my mouth trying to move—to say something to her to make it better.

I wanted to tell Riley that I didn't mean to do it.

I wanted to tell my girl that I was fucked up that night because of what Brynn told me she saw her and Aiden doing in the house.

But I couldn't make the words come out.

I couldn't relive the pain again, so I hid from it.

I ran out of the door and didn't look back.