Poisoned Paradise: A Taboo/Forbidden Romance

Prologue: Ryan

15 years old...

I stand there, completely silent, just staring at her. With her upturned face, and her beautiful brown eyes, and those flower petal lips, all I can think is ... why her? Why does it have to be her? Any other woman in the world, I can see, but her? What the hell had I done in a past life for this one to torture me so?

"Ryan?" Her voice is trembling. No, it isn't her voice. Her whole body is trembling. She's a mass of shaking nerves and fear and it comes out when she speaks, but even so, she's stronger than me. Far stronger than I've ever been or ever will be.

This can't be happening. I thought I had more time. I thought I could just pretend a bit longer. She's ruining it. She's ruining everything. Those three words—so simple, so gently said—had just shattered the façade I'd built ever since I realized I was in love with her.

"Ryan, did you hear me?" she asks.

I hold up a hand when she moves to reach for me. "I heard you," I croak. "I just..." Can't believe all of my dreams are coming true, my mind finishes for me. Is it wrong to be this fucking lucky and unlucky at the same time?

"Do you..." A blush rises to her beautiful face, staining her pale cheeks pink and making me want to do more to see that gorgeous blush go all over. I want to peel away the layers of her clothes and dive into her and see what I can do to make her cry out and writhe against me. "Do you feel the same?" she asks.

I take another step back, bumping into the wall as I cover my mouth. Lie, I urge myself. Lie, damn it!

Sweet, innocent, Willow. What the hell had I done? Had she sensed my attraction? Had she somehow come to view my presence in her life, the one constant either of us had—each other—as something more when it could never be? This is all my fault. I have to fix it.

"No," I force the word out, my voice tight and harsh. "No, I don't. That's disgusting."

Her blush disappears in an instant as her skin drains of color. Willow pulls her hand back. Her eyes widen. Big brown, luminous eyes that so often smiled up at me as she'd brushed my hair back away from my face and told me stories. I'm not much for stories, but I didn't mind hearing them when they came from her.

"Ryan, I-I..."

I can't stay here. I turn to go even as she stumbles through a response. My cock pounds in my jeans, knowing that she feels the same way I do. The sick, twisted part of my mind that has wanted her since I was old enough to understand that my love for her isn't fucking normal is celebrating. So many scenarios run through my head. We can keep it quiet. I can have her. I can fuck her and love her and keep her close to me. I can make her dependent on me. I can make it so that she'll never want to leave me, that she'll never look at anyone else the way she's looking at me now.

I have a very short window of opportunity now. I need to fix this and fast. If I don't, if I stay—if I think about it, I'll convince myself that I can have her. Even though it's wrong. Even though it's sinful, my heart doesn't care. My fucking teenage cock doesn't care either.

If only she were anyone else. If only I was. "Wait!" I ignore her call and duck out of the back room that we'd been in when she dropped that bomb on me. "Ryan!"

There's only one way out of here. One way to get the hell away from her. I need to get away from her. If I don't, then I'll end up telling her the truth. I'll end up dragging her down into my hell. Miranda Carson has threatened to send me to juvie often enough. Now I just have to make sure she follows through and I know exactly how.

I can hear Willow following me at a much slower rate as I storm through the house. For a foster home, it's nice enough, though the Carson parents are more inclined to their own offspring—a weaselly, rat-faced little asshole a year or so older than me. Connor Carson. Piece of shit, small dick pussy that he is. Whether he realizes it or not, I'm aware of the way he stares at Willow and how he feels about her because I feel the same—I want her even if it's wrong. It's excuse enough and the perfect crime.

Willow's gaining on me. Panting, flushed, feeling like my whole world is spinning out of control, I find Connor in the kitchen with his mother. Perfect. He looks up from where he sits at the table while she fumbles with one of the burners on the stove.

"What are you looking at, shithead?" he snaps with a scowl.

That's all it takes. One second, he's sitting—high and mighty—at his mother's wooden table, and the next, he's on the tiled floor with my fist in his face. A scream echoes up the walls. Willow's or Miranda's, I'm not sure, but it doesn't matter now.

I whale on him, throwing punch after punch until cartilage cracks under my knuckles and blood stains my hands. I have to get out. I have to leave her. And this is the only way to do it. She'll be fine without me. I'll be out in a few years, and once I am, everything will go back to normal.

She can be normal.

I have to give her that.

"Ryan! Stop!" Willow's cries are followed by her tear-stained face appearing in front of my field of vision right before something hard whacks me in the back of the head, sending me toppling off of Connor.

"Oh, my baby!" Mrs. Carson screams, diving down onto the floor as one of the other foster kids comes running into the room. "Call the police!" she commands. "Call them now!"

I drag air into my lungs, filling them with the stench of blood and sweat, and pain. "Oh, Ryan..." Willow's soft sobs reach my ears, pricking at both my protective instincts and my darker, more sinister side. I'd made her cry.

Good. Maybe now I can start the process of her hating me. I need her to hate me. Because no matter how much we love each other, there's no way a love like ours can ever be allowed.

I lay there like that, listening to the sounds of her tears and the cruel venomous words coming from Mrs. Carson, telling me she'd known all along that I was bad. That I was evil. That I was full of sin and wickedness.

I don't even have the strength to tell her that I know.

When red and blue lights fill the windows and a hard knock sounds on the front door, I know my time's up. I lift my arm away from my eyes and meet Willow's gaze.

"Fucking forget me, Willow," I say. "Pretend I never existed because from this moment on, you don't exist to me."

Her mouth drops open, shock registering across her features, but before she can reply, an officer is led back into the kitchen. I'm hauled up by strong arms belonging to a man nearly twice my size. I don't even flinch. Without saying a word, I'm led out of the house, handcuffed, and then pushed into the back of a cop car.

Everything in me wants to turn back and look. My inner turmoil screams and scratches and demands that I see if she's watching, if she's looking. But if I look at her one more time, my resolve might falter. I might change my mind and come after her—even after I get out.

So, I suck it up and stare straight ahead, refusing to see if Willow is coming out to stand on the porch as the same officer who'd cuffed me climbs into the front seat.

"You're in a lot of trouble, son," he says.

I dip my head and stare at my knees as the car lists forward and begins to roll down the street.

He has no fucking idea how right he is.