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What is wrong with me?
Everything.
And nothing.
The simple truth he just admitted is making me feel closer to him than I ever could have otherwise.
Ignoring the alarm bells ringing in my head, I let my heart take over and wrap my arms around Caden’s neck. I bring him closer, and he holds himself with a hand on the mattress right next to my head so he doesn’t crush me under his weight. His other hand goes under my top and grabs my hip tightly. The mere sensation of his skin against mine makes me tremble.
I’m not sure how long we’ve been kissing for, but I feel lightheaded from it. He pulls away and wraps a hand around my throat as his other one goes to my bare pussy. He strokes my clit slowly and reignites the fire he started earlier. It only takes him his thumb and brief focus to make me come under his touch yet again. I’m panting when he releases my throat to undo his belt.
“Wait,” I whisper. “I…”
His confused stare makes me uncomfortable. There’s a certain impatience in it, and I’m terrified he’ll use this moment of weakness to do things that’ll make me hate him.
You’re already meant to hate him.
“I don’t…I mean, I’m not…ready.” A beat. “To have sex again.”
“Again?” The surprise in his tone makes me retreat. “When did you stop having s—” The evident truth in my eyes cuts him off. “Fuck,” he releases on a breath as he jumps off me and stands up. He rakes two hands through his hair as he turns away from me and pulls at its roots. I sit up and cover myself with the blanket.
I don’t say anything, because it’s not my duty to make him feel comfortable in a situation that has always been entirely his fault.
He turns back to me, and his true self is more apparent than ever when he says, “You won’t get a sorry from me, Billie.”
“Sorry wouldn’t fix anything. It can’t.” My voice has no anger, but the truth isn’t easy to say or hear.
The truth never means anything. It’s just there, existing to remind us that we’re so terribly human and flawed.
“I really fucking broke you that night, didn’t I?” For once, he doesn’t say it offensively. He doesn’t say it to taunt me and torture me. He’s just realizing the extent of his actions.
Yes, he did break me. But I decide to lie. To not give him the satisfaction of knowing I’m a weirder, more fucked up version of myself since he assaulted me and made me come against my will. Since he made me realize that being forced could bring me pleasure.
“I’m not broken,” I whisper. “You’re not important enough for that. You’re just a smudge on the canvas of my life.”
“Good,” he murmurs as he takes a step closer. “Because it doesn’t change anything. You’ll be mine, Billie. If not now, then. If not here, in this shitty town that broke us…thenthere.”
That fictional, magical place that we both long to go to.
I’m speechless that he dares tell me it doesn’t change anything. I try to push a thought past my mouth, but nothing comes out for a few seconds.
“I don’t understand you,” I finally say.
"I’m obsessed with a girl I barely know and should hate. I killed three guys because they touched her. I’m turning against my own crew for her and don’t even know her fucking middle name. Trust me when I say I don’t understand myself.”
There’s a beat while I take in information that sounds so real and emotionally genuine.
“I mean, there are some people I know really well, and I don’t know their middle names. I don’t think it’s a reference…” I pinch my lips, realizing it’s not the time to get into this. “Three guys, huh?”
He shrugs.
“From that fight night?”
He ignores my question, but I know it’s them because the Kings have been putting the blame on NSC. Turns out it was Caden.
“Get some rest,” he finally says. “You need to get better for that fight.”
He walks to my window, and just as he’s about to climb off, I say, “Caroline. That’s my middle name.”
