The Day I Stopped Waiting Was the Day He Started Begging novel Chapter 27

York shot him a venomous glare. Caleb practically jumped out of his skin, hurriedly tossing over a clean towel. "What the hell is going on with you? Standing in a storm without an umbrella, then coming up here to street race in this weather? Anyone looking at you would think you just got your heart ripped out!"

The moment the words left his mouth, the temperature on the mountain seemed to plummet below freezing, causing Caleb to physically shudder.

He mimed zipping his lips shut. Fine, he would shut up.

Gripping the towel, York ruthlessly rubbed his soaked hair, slicking it back to reveal his devastatingly sharp features. His expression was dangerously cold, the water droplets clinging stubbornly to his eyelashes only adding to his feral, unhinged aura.

"Drive me to Rock Creek Heights."

He chucked his car keys straight at Caleb's chest.

Caleb caught them instinctively, utterly baffled. "Can't you drive yourself? And didn't you just move back to Azure Bay? Why do you want to go all the way out to the Rock Creek Heights house?"

Before Caleb even finished his sentence, York had yanked a bottle of top-shelf whiskey from the trunk, popped the cork, and started downing it straight from the bottle.

Caleb: ...

*What the actual hell.*

His eyes bugged out of his head as he lunged forward, snatching the bottle away. "Are you out of your damn mind?! That's 90-proof liquor!"

York had already slammed back nearly a third of the bottle.

His eyes were entirely bloodshot, heavily masking a chaotic storm of suppressed emotion. After a heavy silence, he rasped, "Forget it. Take me to The Obsidian Room first."

He didn't know if it was the alcohol burning through his veins, or the mental image of another man's jacket draped over her shoulders.

He couldn't tamp down the maddening rage tearing through his chest. Suddenly, he needed her.

He needed to see her.

He wanted to pin her wrists above her head, shove her against a wall, and kiss her so ruthlessly that she would never dare to accept another man's touch again.

...

The dinner date passed in suffocating silence.

Both Madeline and Hunter were naturally reserved, so Madeline kept her head down, focusing on her plate, while Hunter continually placed the best cuts of meat onto her dish.

York leaned in, drenched in the cold rain. The sharp scent of top-shelf whiskey and cedar washed over her. A dangerous smirk played on his lips. "You're too kind, old man. Thank you for looking after Madeline tonight, but I'll be taking my wife home."

Madeline stared at him in utter shock.

Under the amber glow of the streetlights, York's dark eyes gleamed with a predatory fire. Perhaps it was the alcohol in his system, but the smirk on his face carried a raw, unhinged arrogance that was so breathtakingly gorgeous it made her heart stop dead in her chest.

Before she could even protest, his arm had snaked around her waist. His palm was burning hot, the intense heat seeping through her clothes and sending a jolt of fire straight to the tips of her ears.

...Was he seriously throwing a drunken tantrum in public?

Madeline's eyelashes fluttered nervously.

York was still her legal husband, and she was still wearing his diamond ring. Ditching him in the middle of a downpour was out of the question.

"Hunter, I should go. I'll see you on the day of the shoot."

Madeline offered a polite farewell. Hunter's knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel, though the calm smile never left his face. "Get some rest, Maddy. Drive safely, Prosecutor Yates."