His grip was bruising. “You shouldn’t be out here alone. You don’t know what kind of monsters come out after midnight.”
He body caged mine, moonlight sliding over his shoulders. The ache inside me was an old wound reopening. Colorado andevery night since. My fear and my need were the same thing. I hated him for it. I needed it.
“I’m not scared of monsters,” I whispered. My voice shook. Lie, lie, lie.
He laughed, low and broken. “You should be. Especially when I’m like this.” His hand slid to my throat, thumb under my jaw, holding my head steady so I couldn’t look away. “You have no fucking idea what you do to me, do you?”
I tried to jerk away, his grip tightened. My breath caught. “Caiden?—”
He leaned in, his mouth barely above mine, his eyes wild. “I think about you. All the time. I can’t fucking sleep. I see you with him, and all I want to do is drag you away, mark you up, make you remember whose you are. I want to ruin you for anyone else. I want you obsessed. Like me.”
He was shaking, hands rough, voice raw. The wind howled. The sea bruised the shore.
“I dream about Colorado,” I said, voice small. “The cage. The river. You bleeding for me. You breaking for me. Sometimes I wake up wanting it all over again.”
He stilled. I saw the truth in his eyes. Terror, hunger, shame.
“You want the darkness,” he whispered.
He kissed me. Nothing gentle. His mouth crashed down, teeth, tongue, a violence I matched, opening for him, clawing at his shirt, needing him to hurt me, anchor me, make me real. His hands were everywhere–gripping, bruising, showing me I was his. That I’d never be anyone else's.
He pulled back, stared down at me, chest heaving. “I’d kill anyone who touched you. I’d burn this whole fucking world to keep you. I hate it. I hate you for making me want this.”
“I hate you too,” I whispered, voice trembling, but my body arched up for more.
The ocean raged onwards. The world could have ended right then, and I’d have thanked it. I was drowning again, but this time I wanted to go under, wanted to see what waited in the dark.
A lyric drifted up from the house, bass low, pulsing:“You’re my bad habit, my sweet disease…”
He kissed me again, bruising, desperate, like he could bite the need out of me. I let him. I needed it.
“We’re poison,” I breathed.
His hands fisted in my hair, yanking my head back so I had to look at him, darkness and moonlight and ruin in his stare. “That’s never stopped us before.”
I tried to catch my breath, head tipped back, chest heaving against his. Every nerve along my neck sang where his mouth had marked me. But under the rush, something colder threaded through me. The memory of that basement, the cage, Blake’s eyes staring through the glass.
Flat, inhuman. Starved for terror.
I blinked and for a heartbeat, it was Caiden’s face above me, not Blake’s. Those same eyes, but wilder, hotter, dangerous in a different way. Hungry not for pain, but for me. I flinched, old fear grinding up from somewhere deep.
He felt it, of course he did. His grip tightened on my jaw. “Don’t drift.”
I shoved at his chest, nails digging into muscle. "You scare me sometimes," I said, the words ripped out. Bare for him.
He didn't let go. "Good." A savage smile, the moon making his eyes glow, shadows cutting his cheekbones. "I want you scared. I want you to remember what I’m capable of. I want you to remember that cage. Remember me on the other side, going insane because I couldn’t get to you.”
My heart tripped, stuttering between horror and longing. "I do remember." The words came out broken. "Sometimes I wakeup, and it's not Blake behind the glass, it’s you. You’re the one watching me. You’re the one who could hurt me."
His thumb slid over my lips, rough, a silent demand to surrender. Every part of me wanted to give in, to let him take me, but something fought back. Old terror, old rage. I shoved him again, harder.
He held me still, breathing ragged. "You think I don't know that? Every second, I remember. I remember wanting to kill for you. Wanting to tear the world apart. Wanting to tear you apart."
His words shivered down my spine. Truth and threat, desire and violence knotted together. The sea boomed, a dark chorus. Down the beach, laughter; up here, only the pulse of our ruin.
“You’re drunk,” I whispered, voice shaking. “You’ll hate yourself tomorrow.”
He leaned in, breath hot on my ear. “I hate myself now.” His hand slid down my waist, fingers digging in, bruising. “But I need you more than I need forgiveness.”
