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I’d killed him.
Beating Max up couldn’t alleviate that, so I restrained myself. I left before the police came, and the drive back home was filled with brimming violence. Then, when I reached home, I crashed everything in my home. I punched a hole into the wall plaster, overturned tables, and fought with my punching bag until it ripped in two. But that didn’t calm the storm within me either.
Until I turned around and saw Charlotte standing there—a frozen point in the middle of the storm.
The noise that was buzzing around my ears dimmed to a low hum, bringing the craziness down a notch.
She stared at me and blinked a few times. I expected to see horror or fear on her face. But after the shock passed, there was just sadness as her gaze flickered down to my hands.
“What happened?” Her soft voice shot through the darkness, and her footsteps were quiet clicks against the floor. When she reached me, her strawberry scent surrounded me, and I inhaled it like it was a balm.
She reached out and took one of my fists, bringing it up to her lips and blowing on it. At the same time, her eyes flickered up at me.
Something profound clenched my chest, threatening to rip it into two. Overwhelming emotions were rolling through me in waves, almost like I wanted to weep and scream at the same time.
“Leave,”I said, and it came out in a harsh whisper. I didn’t want to scare her, but I needed her to listen because I didn’t think I could control this thing raging inside me, even in front of her. I wouldn’t hurt her. I could never do that. But I could do a lot worse.
I could have a fucking breakdown.
She ignored me, her soft hands still inspecting my raw knuckles and giving me tenderness I didn’t deserve.
I ripped my hands from her. “Get the fuck out of my house,” I commanded. Maybe I did need to scare her to get her away from me. Maybe I needed to show her what an absolute monster I was.
But she simply gave me a mild look and then picked my hand up again.
“Don’t do that. You’re going to rip into your wounds, and that’s not good.” She said it in the same tone one would scold a child with. Then she brought my hand up to her lips, blew on it again, and kissed it.
“They say a kiss sometimes has healing properties.” She glanced up at me with a wink.
The coolness of her lips ricocheted up my arm. That, combined with her bright-eyed gaze filled with understanding, made my heart clench.
With a small tug, she started pulling me toward the only couch in the room that had not been upended.
“Come on. Sit down. I’ll help you if you have a first aid kit lying around somewhere.”
I could have held back or resisted. She was not strong enough to overpower my resistance, but instead, I went with her. I was led like a lamb to sit down. Even worse, I continued sitting while she went off somewhere. I should be fighting her, tossing her over my shoulder, and getting her out of my house. Not only that, but I should then lock the door, closing out our relationship forever.
But I couldn’t resist the hunger inside me for something I didn’t even understand.
So I patiently sat until she was back with the first aid kit. She dropped it on the couch and opened it, locating everything she needed. Then, she held my hand in hers as she dabbed some alcohol on my wounds.
“Does it hurt?” she asked, wincing as she glanced up at me. “Never mind. Stupid question. That looks like it hurts.”
But I shook my head. Pain was the farthest thing from my mind right now. Her hands were gentle and soft, tiny against my own. She dabbed the wounds with compassion, and there was fondness in her gaze.
And affection. That was what it was. I couldn’t remember ever receiving this from a woman. Even my ex-wife. During the first few months, I thought she loved me, but that was overshadowed by everything that happened after. It seemed, with every year, she smiled a little less and hated me a little more.
It made me wonder if her earlier tenderness had truly been because of me or simply because she loved what I gave her.
But with Charlotte, it was different.
She’d never asked me for a single dime, even though I knew she was short on money. She only spoke about taking care of her parents and nephew, never about herself. And now here she was, taking care of me. She was humming a tune as she worked, and I later recognized it to be the same sound I’d sung to her in the closet. The words her sister used to sing to her to comfort her. Now, it was somehow grating to me.
“Something else,” I said.
She turned her head up to stare at me.
“Sing something else,” I requested.
