Axel Carillo.

Axel. Carillo.

I’M AXEL FUCKING CARILLO!

Storming forward, I fought hard to loosen my constricting chest at how fucking good she looked. I wanted her gone. Fucking gone from my life and not torturing me by standing here in my studio… in my fucking personal space, after she’d done everything but spit in my face back at the game.

Pounding forward, Aliyana backed up, the heels of her cowboy boots clicking on the floor until her back hit the wall. Slamming my hands over her head, I caged her in, those huge doe eyes nearly destroying me.

“Why’re you here?” I demanded. Even to me my voice sounded lethal.

“Elpi… you’ve been drinking,” she said, clearly smelling my breath. But I froze, not because she’d figured I’d just inhaled a fifth of Jim Beam, but because she’d just called me that fucking name again!

“I’m not fucking ELPI!” I roared, Aliyana flinching below me. “My name’s AXEL. A-X-E-L! FUCKING AXEL CARILLO!”

Aliyana’s breath quickened as I roared. I expected her run. I wanted her to run in fear. Fear the fucked up Axel Carillo from the Heighters… just like every fucker else did.

But instead, as my livid eyes bored into hers, she lifted her trembling hand and nervously placed it on my chest, right over where my heart was fucking racing.

I was dumbstruck… I could deal with her fear, with her running scared... even with her screams, I was used to causing fear in people. But what I couldn’t handle, what I couldn’t fucking take was her affection at a moment like this… couldn’t take the damn understanding in her tearful dark eyes.

Swallowing hard, I hissed as her hot palm cut through the material of my shirt and a pink flush colored her perfect cheeks.

“Axel…” she whispered, her accent clear and strong, “Axel Carillo…”

No… NO! NO! She couldn’t do this to me.

She couldn’t give me hope… I really couldn’t deal with motherfucking hope… anything but hope…

Staggering back as though I’d been burned, I drunkenly stumbled over the text boards on the floor. Aliyana followed me, her eyes never moving from mine. Unable to keep looking at her sad face, I turned, then froze… I had no-fucking-where else to go.

A hand pressed against my back, then I heard a short sharp inhale. Tensing at Aliyana’s gasp, I closed my eyes and braced for her to tell me that she was done. That she was leaving and never coming back. That she was gonna tell my brothers what I’d been doing. But that’s what I wanted, right? Her gone and outta my life? I asked myself, knowing that the truth to that answer was a huge fucking NO.

“Axel…” Aliyana said on a pained sigh, her hand leaving my skin. It felt like I’d lost all warmth as that hand was removed.

Turning slowly, I saw Aliyana at my workstation. Her attention was on the bottles of liquor lined up… but then my stomach dropped when I saw it wasn’t what’d caught her attention.

The lines of coke…

Standing stock still, I waited for her to look at me, and when she did, there was nothing but pained disappointment in her expression.

I’d never felt so much like Italian trash as I did at that moment. I looked exactly like the man she thought I was. A fucking junkie loser.

“Axel…” she whispered sadly, “what have you done?”

As I watched her eyes brimming with tears, I shook my head, and stumbled toward the other end of the studio near my bed. But as I tried to get some damn distance, the tight grip of her hand on my arm spun me around.

I was done.

Done with it all.

“What?” I shouted, ripping my arm free.

Aliyana swallowed back her apprehension and stepped toward me, her jasmine scent immediately filling my lungs.

“Have you taken it?” she asked me quietly, pointing at the lines of snow.

Flames ran in my veins and I bent down, to growl, “Why the fuck do you care? Why the fuck are you even here, Ally Prince? Just fuck off back to your preppy douche friends and your blond shit of a cheap lay. ‘Cause that seems to be your thing right? Fucking guy after guy? Wasn’t but last night I was all up in your wet cunt, then you let the Redskin’s QB get all up in that pussy not yet twelve hours later!”

It was quick, ‘bout as quick as a flash of light, but Aliyana’s face filled with uncontrollable anger and, before she’d even realized it, she slapped me hard across my face.

On instinct, my face fucking burning hot from the force of her hit, I reached out and grabbed her slim wrist, wrenching her chest to my chest.

“You gotta motherfucking death wish?” I hissed between gritted teeth.

Dark brown eyes flared, and Aliyana spat out, “Fuck you, Axel!”

My lips tensed. “Now I’m Axel? Now you’re fucking pissed, I’m Axel?” My breathing came hard, as did hers, her hard full tits scraping against my body. I lowered my mouth close to her face and snapped, “Get the fuck out.”

Throwing her arm away, I turned to walk toward my bed, my damn head spinning with too much whiskey, when Aliyana shouted, “I didn’t fuck Reece, you unfeeling bastard!”

My feet ground to halt but I didn’t face her.

Unfeeling bastard…? That was a fucking joke. I’d give anything not to feel for just a damn minute.

“You complete fucking asshole! I came here to see you! I had to see you! Even knowing you’re Axel fucking Carillo, a man I know I should stay the hell away from…” she breathed fast, but my heart was sprinting faster waiting for whatever else she had to say, “I just…” I heard her step closer, then felt her warm breath on my back filter through my shirt, shivers running down my spine, “I just couldn’t… Christ, Axel, I just couldn’t stay away…”