The Wilde Series

AZALEA

Holy hell.

Seeing Merrick again completely wrecked me—and not in a negative way. My body is buzzing, and my knees feel weak. He’s temptation in the flesh, my apple in the Garden of Eden; forbidden but impossible to resist.

I’m still reeling, knowing that he’s a cop now. It seems crazy to me.

Six years ago, he was a cocky motorcycle-riding bad boy with a banging body that you just wanted to dig your nails into and fuck until the sun came up.

Now he’s driving squad cars and lecturing kids on the downsides of drugs.

He’s still rocking that panty-dropping body, though.

Before now, I never understood the appeal of a man in uniform, consistently more attracted to a hot guy in leather and a nice pair of jeans, but damn. Merrick filled out that cop suit like nobody’s business.

I’m not ashamed to admit I eye-fucked the crap out of him when he walked in and walked away. His backside is just as sexy as the front, and the best part is…I’ve seen it all.

I can picture him now, sweaty and bare ass naked—his toned and tattooed arms, tanned chest, rock-hard abs, all leading down to that yummy V-line. And below that line…fuck.

What I wouldn’t do to get him alone. Just one more time. It doesn’t have to be a forever thing. One night would do.

Yeah, right. I’m lying to myself by pretending one night would ever be enough of that man.

It’s all moot anyway. Our time together has long come and gone. I hurt him too deeply.

It was written all over his face when he looked at me, made even more apparent by how he stiffened when we touched. It was like a ten-foot wall stood between us, then exploded into flames, blowing us a million miles apart.

“Azzy! Is that you?” Poppy’s lilting voice steals my attention from thoughts of Merrick.

Poppy would have been twelve when I left, still just a kid, but damn. My baby sister has grown up. The nerdy little ginger I remember is long gone, replaced by a curvaceous redheaded goddess.

Regret hits me hard when she wraps her arms around me, squeezing as if her life depends on it. All this time, I thought she’d hate me for leaving, but her beaming smile has me wondering if I’m wrong.

“Hey, Pops,” I whisper against her hair, committing this moment to my memory. I’ll need it when I’m gone again.

“Ew. Not my name, Azzy. I’m not a kid anymore.” She frowns, pulling away from me with her pretty face all screwed up in a knot.

I wince. There it is—the biting edge of resentment I was expecting. I mean, it’s not like I don’t deserve it. She’s eighteen and a university student now.

I missed most of her formative years and important milestones: her first crush, the first day of high school, graduation—shit. I’m a terrible sister.

“Right. Time flies, eh?” I offer a weak smile, trying to sound lighthearted and failing.

“Yeah, life didn’t stop just because you ran off and left us behind,” Iris snaps, her snide comment pissing me off and filling me with an added edge of guilt I don’t need.

I clench my fists, digging my nails into the flesh of my palms to keep my cool. I would love to tell her off. Rub her nose in the fact that she’s a miserable bitch. But what would be the point?

I doubt she would care about anything I have to say. It’s not like she made any effort to talk to me since I left.

Not once did she bother to call or check on how I was doing after everything.

I mean, I was in that accident too, and if she had just taken one second to understand the hell I was living in afterward, maybe she would have realized I handled things the only way I could—alone and on the road.

Staying just wasn’t an option. I wasn’t in the right state of mind, and there was no way I could have lived in a house with all of them resenting me for Mom dying. I blamed myself enough for the lot of us.

I purse my lips and turn to look at my twin, deciding to ignore Iris’s snarky jab at me. “I’m going to head to the farm. Rose, you want a ride?”

“No, thanks. I’m gonna stay a little longer,” Rose says, looking apologetic. “You okay on your own?”

All three of my sisters stare at me expectantly, as if they think I’m going to change my mind and stay just because they are.

But I won’t. I can’t. The depth of my guilt runs too deep, and now it feels like my dad’s blood is on my hands alongside our mom’s.

I nod defensively, feeling out of place in the presence of my family. “Sure. All good. See you at the house.”

The grief I feel, my shame at the pain I’ve caused, is why I left. A vast, selfish part of me couldn’t withstand the weight of our fractured family on my shoulders.

Am I proud of taking off and bailing on everyone? Not really. Would I do it again? In a fucking heartbeat. Why? Because that’s just who I am.

Ever the outcast, never the favorite.

***

On the long drive to the farm, I can only think about how things hadn’t changed here. Sure, Poppy is all grown up, and my other sisters are older, but everything else is the same.

I’m still the black sheep—the one who acts before thinking about the consequences. I don’t fit in with my siblings. I never have.

Rose was the only exception, always sticking by me through all my impulsive and often shitty life choices. But when I left the hospital so abruptly tonight, even she seemed disappointed in me.

When I pull up to the house, nostalgia hits me like a freight train, knocking the breath from my lungs in one shot.

Shit. I didn’t think it would hurt this bad to come back here, but when I look at this place, all I see is Mom.

Her favorite chair is still on the wraparound porch with the blanket she used to curl up in folded neatly over the back like she always left it.

I can picture her settling into that chair with her overflowing glass of wine, taking a few quiet moments to herself to unwind each night before bed.

God, I miss her.

I inhale deeply as I step out of the car, the smell of hay and leather hitting my nose while the wind chimes rattle in the breeze between the sound of horses in the fields. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss it here.

As I was growing up, horses were one of the few things that brought me solace. Whenever anything went wrong in my life, I’d hide away in the barn and read a book in the hayloft above my favorite horse’s stall.

Almost as if I’m on autopilot, I find myself headed in that direction, making my way toward the whinnies and stomps on the other side of the barn door.

My long-buried guilt nails me like a well-timed punch when I step inside, bringing me to my literal knees.

Tears flow freely as I kneel in a hunched-up pile on the floor, my body racking with the cathartic sobs pouring from my chest. I haven’t cried in forever.

Over the years, I’d become a master at bottling up my feelings, pushing them to the back of my mind until I could completely ignore them. It was the only way I could cope with losing everyone and everything in one fell swoop.

I’m so lost in the emotion of being back here, in the memories, that I don’t hear footsteps approaching until a muscular arm wraps around my shoulders.

The embrace feels so familiar and natural that I don’t even have to look up to know who it is. Every cell in my body remembers the feel of him, the all-consuming aura that follows him around wherever he goes.

Despite my overwhelming sadness, my body zings with that all-over tingly feeling I used to get whenever Merrick touched me. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Why is he here? Nothing good can come of this.

I can’t lean on him—I don’t want to. Being vulnerable has never been my strong suit. I consider it a character flaw.

But it’s like I can’t control myself. The fucking tears won’t stop flowing. It’s like I pushed some invisible weakness button by coming back here.

“Let me go!” I push feebly against him, fighting the soft comfort of his embrace. My slight frame is no match for his strength, so he grips me tighter, curling my body into his chest to hold me flush against him.

Merrick rides out my struggling, rocking me in his lap like a small child. “Stop fighting me, Az. Just let me be here for you.” He wraps his other arm around me, reaching up to caress my hair in soothing, rhythmic strokes.

I don’t want him to be here. To see me like this. I’ve always been the tougher one, the more closed off between us.

Despite his outward appearance as the bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks, he had a heart of pure gold. A far cry from the hunk of muscle weighing heavy in my chest, made of nothing but razor blades and regret.

I don’t deserve him. I never did, and I never will. But that doesn’t stop me from relaxing into him, burying my face into his enticing masculine scent.

That ever-present selfish side of me knows I’m just using him, taking advantage of his weakness for me to get a taste of the love I once had.

I know I can’t give him what he needs, but for now, I can pretend—for my sake—because he’s the only thing keeping me together as I fall apart.

Gentle lips press against the crown of my head, replaced by a stubbled cheek and a whisper. “Shh, shh, shh. It’s okay, Az. I’ve got you. Let it all out.”

And in my moment of weakness, I do. I cry for the loss of my mom, my dad, and the hurt I’ve caused my sisters, but most of all, I cry for destroying the heart of a man like Merrick.