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The clock ticks incessantly in the background as I fight for words.
“No.” The word scrapes against my vocal chords. I repeat it again, willing it with every fiber of my being to be true. “No. I don’t.”
Brian stares at me intently for a moment, his eyes bouncing between mine. Then he leans back a little, his posture relaxing as he draws a deep breath, voice softening. “You’re lying. Good,” he says with a small smile. “That makes things a little easier for me.”
“For you?”
I turn to face him more fully, shaking my head in confusion.
What is he talking about?
He pats my knee, giving a little shrug. “I still feel bad about this. But knowing you fucked them? Knowing you fucking fell for them?” A hard edge enters his voice. “I feel less bad.”
“What are you—”
I gasp as he moves like lightning, wrapping an arm around my neck as he grabs something from the bed behind him.
A sharp needle pricks my skin before I have time to protest or pull away from his strong hold, and I yelp in shock and pain. But that’s the only sound I make. The sedative rushes through my system in a torrent, stealing thought.
Stealing strength.
Stealing consciousness.
My vision blurs and darkens, just a single word left echoing in my mind.
Betrayed.
20
Hale
I can’t sleep.
Doesn’t matter how fucking drunk I still am.
I toss and turn on the bed, aching for sleep. Aching for Grace. Burning for her.
For a few fucking seconds back there on my desk, while I was buried to the hilt inside her, her walls still fluttering around my cock, everything felt right. For just a little while, the hollow ache in my chest was filled. My heart beat normally. I felt at peace.
It was a strange sensation, almost totally foreign to me. But it was a welcome one. Something I’d been dying for without even realizing it, like a man in a desert who’s convinced he can live by drinking sand.
Grace is water.
Pure. Perfect.
“I’m a fucking dick,” I mutter into the darkness, punching my pillow.
I hate the feeling of feeling. I don’t know what to do with the tightness in my chest when I see her, the way my breath catches. I don’t know what to do with the odd flicker of warmth in my heart when she speaks, so I channel it into cold wrath. I push her away again and again when all I want is to pull her closer.
When I realized what had happened—that I’d let myself finally break down and take her, that I’d fucked her on my desk—I closed myself off. Because that’s what I do when emotions and feelings start to creep in. I shut that shit down. I shove them away before they can fuck with my heart.
But it didn’t work that way with Grace. The more I tried to hate her, the softer my feelings toward her became. I’ve been a goddamn mess since we brought her back to Chicago, and I can see the effect my actions have had on her.
I’ve hurt her.
Because I’m an asshole. A moody fucking asshole.
I’ve fucked up big time, not because of what happened between us, but because of how I handled it. The moment I felt her start to pull away, I threw all my damn walls back up too. I tried to tell myself it was just a quick fuck, that it didn’t mean anything.
