“It would have been the nice thing to do,” I murmur, leaning into his touch like a desperate whore.
“Since when are you an expert onthe nice thing to do?”It’s a rude thing to say, but the way he mutters it? Nate sounds soft and sweet. Relived.
“Since someone started teaching me,” I reply, and something similar to violent heat explodes in Nate’s eyes, his fingers gripping my skin roughly, almost on instinct.
“Aw,” he purrs, bending slightly to get eye-level with me. “Is someone finally learning their lesson?”
NowIfeel that violent heat, as well as the urge tofight. I’m not here to appease him, I remind myself. I’m here to punish him.
“Sure. And now it’s your turn.”
Somewhere in the distance, a door slams. Nate startles, as if he’s just now remembering where we’re standing, and he grabs my hand.
“Come,” he commands, and I damn near do, right here in my jeans.
But that’s not what he meant. As he drags me out of the kitchen and into the backyard, I soak in the feeling of his warm skin against mine. In how, right now, I can actively feel the darkness receding.
The waves are loud, crashing against rocks so many feet away and many more below as Nate shoves me against a shed not far from the back door.
“You won’t be teaching meanything,” Nate sneers, and though he’s holding me like he hates me and speaking to me like I’m worth nothing, his eyes are so heated, so adoring that I can barely breathe.
“You sure about that?” I push out, relishing the feel of his hands as they trace my hips, his thigh shoved between mine. “Because I think you’re due for some punishment of your own.”
“Why?” he snaps, not even flinching as I bury my hands in his hair. “Because I didn’t tell you I’d be missing this weekend? Because you didn’t get fucked hard the way you crave?”
“That’sexactlywhy. You don’t get to come around and tell me I can’t fuck anyone else, then not show up. It’s unfair.”
“Unfair?” Nate laughs. “Everythingyou do is unfair. You go around forcing people to do things for you as if you own them, living in your rich boy dreamland as the honest people around you work to the bone.”
And now, Natedoessound like he hates me. Like he resents everything I stand for, who I am at my core. And it pisses me off. It makes me feel small and insecure as he demeans me.
“You make me sound like a monster,” I tell him. “You act as if I’m toxic or evil.”
“Aren’t you?” he pushes, shoving his face next to my ear as he adds, “Are you not made up of lies, all the way to your core?”
That… is more honest than he’ll ever know. Iammade up of lies; I lie to people constantly, hiding my own weakness in terror.
I hate that he can see this, even if it’s misguided.
“You think you’resoclever, don’t you?” I sneer, unwilling to let him see the effect he’s having on my psyche.
“I do, actually. Clever, and handsome, and witty,” he rattles it off, as if he’s keeping a personal tally of all his best qualities.
“Fuck you,” I snap, mostly because he’s right.
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he purrs, angry and so fucking pent up that I can see his lust as he pulls back just enough to stare at me. “You’re such a desperate, wicked little thing that I bet you dream of it daily.”
When I say nothing because once again, he’s right, he adds, “Hm? Am I right? Are you sitting around your little condo, hand in your pants, imagining all the ways I might break you someday? Imagining medefilingyou?”
My whole body sings, an admittance to his claims, as I remember lying in bed, massaging my dick to memories ofhim. Of our time together.
“Nathaniel,” I grit out, “I would rather take a hot poker up my ass than be left unsatisfied byyou.”
It’s a lie, and we both know it. We have both been present every time he’s taken me, as I’ve fallen apart and eaten up every single tormented or pleasureful thing he’s dealt.
Nate grins, a sick and twisted thing, as he grips my jaw in a punishing hold. “That’s not what you said the last time you were sat on my dick,Landon.That’s not how you were acting when I had my fingers buried in your—”
“Enough!” I interrupt, unwilling to hear his recollection of all my weakest moments. Of all the moments in which I wanted him. “Get your hands off of me.”
