And I…
I…should have let her kill me.
I should have embraced the cold steel.
I should have faced the consequences of my own actions gladly. For her sake.
Weak, I collapse, slowly, knees hitting the ground at her feet as my touch skates from her face, down her neck, across her side to tangle in the skirt of her dress. Defeated, I plant my forehead against her stomach and stare at her shoes—battling for control, stability,calm. My heart can’t handle this.
I want her so badly it hurts, but I can’t make her want me like this. I cannot let her think for even a moment that what I wantfrom her is something as superficial as touch. I need her soul. I need the fragments in my veins so that our blood might mingle.
I need this woman, the first woman I’ve ever met who makes sense to me, to bemine. Completely. Irrevocably.
“Sorry.” I swallow, wet my lips. “I love you. Are you…okay?”
She doesn’t reply. She doesn’t move.
I lift my chin and find her stricken expression fixed down, on me. Breathy, she whispers, “Youalmost died. Why wouldmebeing okay matter?”
Because I almost kissed you. While you were crying. Because sick parts of me reveled in the idea of making you break that much further. “I’m touching you with dirty hands.”
Blanched, her flesh pales so severely it melds with her clothes. “After something like this, isn’t seeking human comfort normal? Especially…from a significant other?”
“Probably.” I offer her a frail smile. “But we both already know that our relationship isn’t normal. You’re in it to answer questions about why I affect you so deeply, to level the power balance between us, and to pay me back for everything I’ve put you through.”
“And you’re in it to torment me. Somehow. Because it’s just another one of your insipid games. Because I’m not worth being with.”
“Is that what you think?”
Her shaking hands close into fists. “That’s what I know.”
Her eyes harden, and I can read decades of lies in them. Decades of times her brain has convinced her she’s wrong, or bad, or not enough.
Oh, precious girl. “I love you.”
Her face contorts. “The more you say that, the less I believe it. If youreallyloved me, it’d be harder to say.”
“Is that what you think?”
“Stop saying that,” she hisses. “It’s like you’re trying to get me to doubt myself. To question why I would dare to think what I do. But Idon’t. I’m confident in what I believe. I’ve pandered to you for years. I know what you are and what you’re like.”
“You don’t, though.”
“Ido.”
My head shakes, and I yank on her skirt, jerking her to the filthy ground with me. Cementing her body against mine with one arm, I pinch her chin with my free hand, stare deep into her eyes, then commandeer her face. Laying my lips to her cheek, I press a kiss into her flesh until she’s fighting me with half-gargled protests and beating fists.
Pinning her motions, I whisper in her ear, “What if…”
She grips my shoulder so tight I feel her nails through the fabric of her gloves and my clothes.
“…I’m worse than anything you could ever hope to imagine?” I let my nose graze her neck. “And…what if…I love you anyway?”
Her body constricts. And she doesn’t have an answer.
Chapter Sixteen
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