Free Traitorous Heart 5 (Traitorous Heart #5) by Breena Wilde Page A

softly.
    “Shit.”
    Cage’s response made me smile. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” I turned to face him. He was leaning against the wall in the doorway. His arms were casually crossed over his chest. Light from the bathroom hit his short blond hair, keeping his face in shadow. He really was beyond good looking.
    I sat on the edge of his bed. “I don’t really have a right to be mad. We never agreed to anything exclusive. Besides, he’s going to L.A. at the end of the week, will probably sign a contract with a record label, become a rock god, marry his fiancée, and live happily ever after.” Saying the words aloud made me sick. “There’s no place for me in his life.” Without a doubt I knew that was true, but I wasn’t ready for him to be out of my life. He’d been there for me when no one else had, and when we fucked? My body shivered at the memories.
    “No one schedules a place in their lives for a relationship. At least no one I’ve ever met. They just happen, and you make room.”
    I raised an eyebrow.
    “If the other person is important, you make room.”
    “Well, I’ve had my life planned out since I was eleven.”
    Cage sat beside me, reached over, and took one of my hands. “How’s that going for ya?” He laced my fingers with his.
    I didn’t want to answer. His words struck at the heart of my problem. Up until a few months ago, my plans had been going exactly as I planned. Now they were all fucked up. I blinked back the tears lining my lashes. “Worse than expected,” I admitted.
    “I don’t know Griffin. I’m sure he’s a great guy, especially if he caught your attention.” He shook his head. “But if he isn’t willing to put you first, then he isn’t worth your time.”
    “Logically, I know that. But, in here—” I pressed my free hand to my chest. “It hurts.” I couldn’t believe I was telling him exactly how I felt about Griffin. Doing so broke the code when it came to girls talking to guys: They didn’t want to hear about previous relationships.
    Cage lifted my hand and kissed it. “I’m so sorry, Dandelion. If it makes you feel any better I can understand how you’re feeling.” He seemed hesitant to say more.
    “You recently broke up with someone?”
    He glanced away, his eyes focusing on a point behind my head.
    “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it.”
    Cage smiled, a sad, faraway smile. “We met our senior year in high school. It was that love at first sight kind of thing. Once we were together I believed she was the only person for me. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I would get sick when we weren’t together. I needed her. She was the air I wanted to breathe, the only food that could sustain me.”
    I swallowed. All I could do was listen. I’d never felt so strongly for a person before. “What happened?”
    His jaw clenched. “She didn’t feel the same way about me,” he said quietly.
    “Ouch.” Pain at the memories rolled off him.
    “Yeah, after I graduated high school I needed to get away. I’d pissed away high school and didn’t have the grades or the money for college, so I did the only thing I could at the time. I joined the Army.”
    “You ran away.”
    His laugh was harsh. “What the fuck was I thinking?”
    “You hated it? The Army?”
    “At first. It was hard, and I’d been a lazy teenager. But by the end of basic training, that all changed.”
    “Why’s that?” It was cool listening to him talk about his past. Reid and I rarely did that, and Griffin? I knew next to nothing about him.
    “My sergeant kicked my ass physically on a regular basis. Called me out on all my shit… sometimes to the extreme, but I needed it.”
    “Sounds scary,” I admitted.
    “At first it was. But one day, after fifty push-ups, the Sarge got in my face. He said, ‘You gonna be an asshole your whole life or are you gonna make a goddamned difference?’”
    My heart sped up. “What’d you say?”
    Cage looked at our hands linked