Page 152 of Make Me Mean It

Something inside my chest fucking caves.

Because I’m standing right in front of him trying not to fall apart, and some part of him is still more worried about whether someone might see us doing it.

I drop my gaze.

I can’t fucking look at him and say this. I don’t think I can look at him at all without doing something stupid, and my hands have started shaking enough that I need to give them something else to do.

My fingers dig into my pocket and close around my cigarettes.

I pull one out and shove it between my lips, flicking my lighter open. The flame jumps once before catching, trembling with my hand as I bring it closer.

“Anything,” I breathe around the cigarette. My voice sounds rough, barely fucking steady. “Anything is better than this.”

I drag in a breath before the end has even properly caught, smoke burning down my throat and filling my lungs. Usually it gives me a second. Something to concentrate on. The inhale, the burn, the familiar weight between my fingers.

It does fuck all now.

Connor is still all over me.

His aftershave is on my skin. I can smell him beneath the smoke, still caught in my hair, my shirt, probably the fucking sheets upstairs. I can still feel his hands on me if I think about it for too long, the weight of him wrapped around me this morning, his mouth against mine while I asked him to stay.

My knees feel weak.

I take another drag, deeper this time, holding it until my lungs sting because maybe if I fill myself with enough smoke I can get rid of him for five fucking seconds.

“I don’t know what you want from me.”

I look up.

Connor’s frustration is written all over his face, his brows drawn together, mouth tight as he steps toward me.

Then he reaches out and plucks the cigarette straight from between my lips.

His other hand lands on my hip, pulling me in, and I fucking let him.

After everything I’ve just said, after standing here telling him how tired I am of this, my body folds the second his hand touches me. I step into him without even thinking, my chest brushing his as the space disappears, his fingers tightening at my hip like he knows I’ll stay if he holds me there.

A shaky breath slips out of me.

Pathetic.

I lift my eyes to his.

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “You do.”

Connor’s brows pinch together.

I swallow, but my throat is closing up around the words. They’re right fucking there, the thing I’ve been trying not to say because saying it makes all of this real in a way I’m not sure I can survive.

But what does it matter now?

He already knows.

Maybe he’s always known.

“I wanted you.”

Connor’s jaw locks.