AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Something loyal and lost and longing.
I didn’t know what lurked inside, but I did have urges to wrap her in bubble wrap and place her on a pedestal, all while tearing into her mind and chaining her to me forever.
Those needs fucked me up.
Those needs were getting harder and harder to control.
And when she’d kissed me?
The first time anyone had gotten close enough to give me something instead of letting me take, I’d broken.
I’d hurt.
Goddamn, I’d hurt.
Even now, my heart throbbed with bruises. I couldn’t stop picturing the mortification on her pretty face. She’d tried to kiss me. To give me peace, comfort…herself.
Christ, you’re a fool.
I should’ve kissed her back.
Should’ve put aside my stupid promise not to taste and kissed her.
I groaned and rubbed my face.
All my life, I’d searched for somewhere—someone—to belong to. I’d let loneliness become a trigger and emotion to become deep pain. I’d twisted myself into something that craved another’s despair, all so I could forget my own.
I’d broken when I was just a boy, unwanted by a mother far too traumatised to care. I’d learned to survive in a laughless, loveless home, and now both of those things fucking petrified me.
The thought of Ily seeing that brokenness? Seeing just what a fraud I was—that I couldn’t stomach the thought of loving or laughing or being…vulnerable?
Jesus Christ.
Yanking on my hair, it took all my willpower to stay behind that door while Ily ate unmolested. I gave her the only thing I could: space. Precious time to gather herself together so tomorrow she could stay strong and pretending by my side.
If I managed to turn off the scrambler, I had no idea if Q would come immediately or take his sweet ass time arranging his mercenaries.
He might come at dawn or dusk.
He might never come.
And if I planned on keeping myself and Ily alive, then I had to be fucking smart.
Starting with not kissing her. Not caring for her. Not allowing the beast inside me to claim what wasn’t his to claim.
She’s a tool.
That’s it.
As long as I thought of her as nothing more than a co-star and she continued playing along with me, then we could get through this.
We have to.
* * * * *
I crashed to the floor.
I woke with a jolt, hands fisted, arms up, ready for war.
