Free Invincible (A Kingpin Love Affair Book 3) by J.L. Beck

myself… Exposed.
    “Try and believe me…”
    We’re over…
    We really were.
     
     

CHAPTER NINE
    Devon
     “FUCK!” I BELLOWED out into the midnight air. My heart was aching, my chest was constricting with pain. I could feel her sadness from inside the cabin. The sadness I had caused. I leaned against the cabin wall, unable to hold myself up. I had never felt such misery like this. Nor had I ever felt like someone had ripped a part of my soul out and threw it away.
    This is how she felt… Those words rung in my ears like a heavy reminder.
    “I’m so sorry, Tegan…” I whispered into the air as I fell to the ground, my knees giving out on me. How all of this had gone to hell in a hand basket, I didn’t know… How had I gotten so far, yet so far behind?
    Could I handle losing her again, right when she was within reach? When I could make everything all right?
    Wetness seeped from my eyes faster than I could brush the tears away. I hadn’t cried in years, not since my parents. My parents.
    Yet another reminder of why I left… Why Tegan was hurting. The mere thought of them brought me back to the present. Yes, I was hurting, and I knew Tegan was too, but deep down in the pits of what had made me the person I was, I knew I did the right thing. Sometimes, doing what you needed to… hurt. Being strong was just a part of the pain.
    All I could do was to say I was sorry and to tell her I still loved her. Then hope somehow, somewhere deep inside of her, she still felt the same way.
    Settling onto the ground, I leaned my back against the wood of the cabin and stared up at the night sky. My eyes drifted closed taking me back to a time when she was mine… when I didn’t have a care in the world… just her…
    “Do you think there are aliens out there?” she had asked, giggling like a child. She always had the strangest questions. The sun had just set and the stars were blanketing the sky above us in an array of sparkling gems.
    “What kind of question is that?” I asked. Her hair was sprawled out as we lay on a blanket on the ground. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. It didn’t matter that I had been looking at the night sky. In my eyes, she was the most beautiful of all.
    She shot me a look that caused me to smile.
    “I just sometimes wonder if there are others out there and if they do stuff like we are right now?” I couldn’t contain my laughter. These are the kinds of comments that had drawn me to her. She was the strangest, yet unique and endearing girl I had ever met in my life.
    “You think there are aliens out there? Those who stay out past their curfew, staring up at the sky, wondering if there are ‘humans’ out there?”
    “Yes, I do!” Her answer was defensive as if she had expected me to ask her that.
    “I just wonder if they love, too… If they could love someone like we do? Like, maybe they aren’t all that bad. Maybe they have feelings… Maybe they…” she continued, pausing for a moment. I took that second and held it in my hands.
    “Shhh…” I said covering her lips with my own. She was too adorable in that one second to pass up not kissing. Her hands wove around my neck as I cradled her in my arms. I bit her bottom lip, waiting for her to open up more for me just so I could get one last taste…
    “Mmm…” She moaned in pleasure. I smirked against her lips, knowing it was my love, my lips, my feelings that made her so inspired with love. With others, she was caring, loving, and that was because she had felt love. She had me…
    She had me. I repeated the words back to myself. I could do this. I had dealt with worse things in my life.
    I stood, wiping the dirt off my pants. It was time to stop sulking and hating myself. I had a duty to achieve. I needed a plan, and I had to figure out what those men wanted with her. Hell, I needed to find out whatever it was they were doing to this town.
    I had to protect Tegan and I would at all costs. At the end of all of this, she was the