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“I need to know that you can forgive me for not coming after you. For not saving you.”
Chapter 28
Shiloh
It was never about saving me.
It was never about what Corvin didn’t do.
It was always me.
Always this broken part of me who can’t help but fuck everything up.
But my tongue won’t unstick from the roof of my mouth long enough to make those feelings into coherent thought.
I feel it. I feel him pulling away.
Resigning himself to a piece of my past before I have a chance to glue him into place. To tie us together with the noose I’ve held above my head for far too damn long.
I feel flayed open and raw. The ways he touched me, moved inside me, it’s all built up so much pressure in my chest I can hardly breathe.
“I can’t promise that I’ll never be depressed. Or that I’ll never want to die.”
Corvin’s green eyes grow impossibly soft. “That’s not what I’m asking, sweetheart.”
“It sounds like it. It sounds like you’re saying you can’t handle me on my bad days.” I don’t recognize my voice as it raises, as it hardens and cracks. “You told me you could take it. You told me I couldn’t break you.”
He touches my body and my skin starts to crawl, but I don’t tear myself away.
“I can take it, Shiloh. I can take every nasty word, every fist you throw my way—I can and will take it. So long as I can take care of you. Not just shut you off with sex. But comfort you. Help you heal. Be someone you run to and not from.”
I shake my head because I need to clear the noise building up. The nasty voice starting to shout in my soul again.
“Running away is what I do. When things get hard, I run to a bottle. Or to drugs or sex. I thought you understood that.”
There’s pain etched into every line on his face. Pain that I’m causing.
“I can’t be your home if you lock me out.”
This is the turning point. That moment in every romance movie or novel where the protagonist has to decide whether their love for the other person is stronger than their vices.
I’m weak.
My love is weak. And brutal.
“What if you change your mind?” My voice wobbles. “What if I let you in, depend on you, and then you stop wanting me? If I become too much?”
“Shiloh.” He drops an exasperated sigh. “Did anything about what just happened between us feel like I could ever stop wanting you?”
No. It felt like a permanent mark seared into my soul. Like an oath that will shatter us both if it breaks.
“All I’m asking is that you let me love you.” Corvin pulls the blanket tighter around my shoulders, grasping my neck in his palm. “Don’t hide from me. Or at least be willing to let me find you.”
Say yes. Just kiss him and say yes. It’s that easy.
“I don’t know if I can,” I say, the words coming out through numb lips.
I want to say yes. I want to give in. But it’s like a lifeboat that’s just out of reach, and I don’t have the strength to take the plunge into the icy water to reach it.
