“You deserve better than that …”
Thanme.
Because I’m broken.
In pieces.
A tangled black vine that’ll smother him to death.
His stare tracks over my face in catastrophic sweeps, darkening. “I don’t. I deserve a lot of things but your respect isn’t one of them.”
“You don’t understand,” I whimper, my voice soft and fragile. Weak—just like my ability to battle the gravity bringing my mouth closer to his, thieving another brush of his lips. Another trinket I tuck away, cradling close to my heart. “My love will tear youapart.”
He digs his hand into the hair at the back of my head. “Then I’ll die a happy man,” he snarls, and crushes our lips together in a clash of desperate, wild abandon.
A deep, aching strike I fall upon the blade of.
Willingly.
I moan into his mouth, tugging at his hair as I tip his head to the side and stoke the kiss. Tasting him.
Devouringhim.
More vines of tender relief cram into all my nooks and crannies until I can barely inflate my lungs, and my body grows loose like softening butter.
We tide together, a perfect meld of hunger and repose, our souls seeming to skim with the dig of our tongues and the pull of our lips. He rumbles into me, almost like a purr, making heat pool in my lower belly.
I grow greedy …ravenous.Rock my hips.
Just once.
A zing of pleasure spears through me when that tender bundle of nerves brushes against his solid length, like an electric shock to the aching organ in my chest, reminding me of all my singed, jagged edges.
I break our kiss, resting my head on his shoulder, my breaths hard and heavy.
Heart thrashing.
Breathe …
His arms move around me, lips skimming my temple, planting an icy kiss that ignites my skin in a flush of delicious goosebumps.
I open my eyes, seeing the wide, risen scar on his chest …
A chill slips through my veins, dousing the throb between my legs.
I remember the feel of his blood on my hands; the way it felt when it dried and cracked.
I remember the way he kissed me on the head right before he slipped away.
I remember his final words that gave so much and took so little despite everything I’d just done to him.
Don’t cry.
Guilt crashes over me. Ugly, selfish guilt—saturating the air, making it hard to breathe.
I can’t control thisthinginside.
I ripped my own mother to bits.
