Page 278 of Sorrow & Strangers

“Listen and listen well, I will not be your way to atone. I am yours from the beginning to the end. If you want me, truly want me, you know what I need from you, but I will not be a way for you to torture yourself. That has been my role for many others. Someone who causes them pain, bringer of death, but not for you. Never for you.”

I sway against him, breathless from his kiss, his confession, his words, and my own. I swallow. “Stranger, I didn’t . . . with Max today. I couldn’t.”

“Why?” he asks, his fist tightening in my hair.

“Because I kept thinking of you.”

“You were thinking about me?” he asks, his shoulders relaxing a little.

“About your touch, your lips, your voice. About earlier at your place.”

He exhales heavily. “I couldn’t watch when you were with him.”

I stare up at him, knowing it’s time to face another truth. “Max was never a threat to my relationship with Connor. He’s safe.” My darkness is silent with Max. He’s safe for me in more ways than one. “But every day you consume more of me. Even when we’re not talking.”

I had decided before to delve into my darkness, but when he hurt Max, I second-guessed myself. But every single day he wasn’t with me, I thought of him, missed him, forgave him a little more. I understand him.

“Only fair. Since you’ve owned me from the beginning,” he says, chuckling darkly. He pulls me against him. “No matter how much either of us will it otherwise, there is only one choice for us, one path forward.”

“Do you wish it otherwise?” I ask, wishing I could actually see his eyes.

“I did once,” he says, and I know it shouldn’t, especially with the words I have hurled at him, but it stings a little. He cups my jaw. “You have such control over me, from a single look. I resented that. Resented you.” He brushes his thumb along my cheek. “Yet I could not stay away. So this avatar, this charade, was all an excuse for me to be near you.”

I close my eyes.

“So what now, princess?” he asks, his hand loosening, his fingers lightly caressing my scalp. “What do we do now?”

I look up at him again, placing my hand on his chest. “I don’t know.” He covers my hand on his chest. “I need to think.”

“Alone?” he asks, and I know it’s maybe unfair of me, but yes. I need to think about everything now that I’ve unraveled that hideous lie. It’s time to face my hideous truth.

“Meet me back here at the same time tomorrow?”

He scans my eyes, and I can feel his reluctance, but he nods and slowly releases me. I stare up at him for a moment before I turn away and leave the clearing. Even once I am out of the forest and out of his sight, I can still feel his gaze on me, though I know he’s not watching.

Chapter One Hundred Thirteen

Rafe

The rock pings as it hits the window. It’s taken a bit of practice to find the exact size of pebble I need to throw to avoid breaking the glass. I resorted to crushing a larger rock into fragments, and I practiced on another building that now has two broken windows.

A couple more rocks gently hit the windowpane before she comes and pushes it open. “Rafe. We talked about this. It was a one-time thing. It can’t happen again.”

A one-time thing. The words work their way under my skin, but I force myself to remember her fire in my arms, the way we meshed together. This is not one-sided. I know it isn’t.

I wave at her to come down to me.

“Go home,” she says, but she doesn’t snap the window shut or even move away. She’s saying the things she feels she has to say, not the things she wants to.

“I’ll come up if you don’t come down,” I threaten. I did it before, and I will do it again.

She curses and closes the window. I watch as she stomps out of the building and stalks toward me, her hair sparking with her ire.

“We talked about this, Rafe,” she repeats, but her voice is softer, gentler, with an edge of something I can’t identify.

“I like you,” I blurt out. That sucked. Surely I can do better than that? “I know I was dating someone else, but it was only because I thought you wanted nothing to do with me.”

I wanted to be normal. I wanted to be like everyone else and pretend I wasn’t devastated that you hadn’t replied to me. That I didn’t cross a line with you so badly that it caused you to blow me off.