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“Do you see how good it can be when someonewillinglygives into someone else? Do you see how good it could’ve been? That’s what happens when you don’t take, Emery. When you’re not a monster.”
My lips clamp shut. I’m not a hero, but in her story, I guess I am.
If the walls in this warehouse could talk, she’d know I’m as dark a monster as Emery, though not in quite the same manner. She’s got an affinity for attracting us it seems.
* * *
We’ve been sittingin front of Carina’s house for more than twenty minutes. She hasn’t spoken a word. I don’t want to push her, either. She’d been through a lot in her life, but tonight will have been a lot for her, and I’m not proud of all I’d allowed to happen between us. Hope is all I can hold onto that she doesn’t feel taken advantage of by me, too.
“When will you let him go? He’s an affluent member of society, someone will notice he’s missing,” she finally says.
It’s not the first thing I thought she was going to say, I’ll admit. I’d been prepared for her to tell me she regrets what we’d done. Not that I’d let her for one second revel in any of that bullshit feeling.
“When you get your answers,” I tell her, turning in my seat to look at her.
“Gage, why are you doing this? All because you saw me and wanted me? It doesn’t make any sense.” She’s shaking her head, tears threatening to spill.
“Carina, you’re worthy of everything I’ve done and everything I will do for you. I’d kill for you, and there needs to be no rhyme or reason to it. You are my driving force; I can’t tell you why you are. Something about you calls me to you, and I’ll do anything...”
“To be with me?” she asks, cutting me off.
Do I want to be with her? What’s my end game?
I’d never thought deeply into my obsession with her. I’m a dark man, and I never think too hard on anything I do. If I do, I risk driving myself insane. More so, anyhow.
“If that’s what you want. Carina, I want any part of you that you’ll give me. I know that’s weird coming from me, being how we met, but it’s true. I’d never have taken from you as he did.”
“I know that. But you also have to realize you shattered my idea of safety. I thought I was okay to be on my own, okay to move on from the past, and you broke that sense of security. Even when I got cameras, you still pushed through my boundaries.”
Wait, what?
Her words unsettle me, make me feel like I fucked up more than I even realized beforehand. And I’m not going to deny how uneasy I feel as she gives me her truth. But I’d resigned to give her back her power, and in doing so, I’m now faced with her shutting me out.
And now that I’ve had the sliver of herself that she’d given me, I don’t know if I can go back to stalking her. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel okay following her. Even as I think that, though, a seedier part of me tells me I’d follow her to the ends of the earth, in the shadows of hell if that’s where she took me. She’s mine, and I’ll wait as long as it takes her to realize it.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, surprising us both.
“Are you? Or are you scared?” she asks, turning my words on me expertly as she turns toward me.
I try not to smirk because she’s serious.
I open my mouth and she covers my lips with her finger. “No lies. I fucking hate lies,” she whispers.
“Your too quick a learner, you know that?” I ask.
She smiles. “Answer the question.”
“Both. I’m sorry and I’m afraid of losing you.”
Her eyes soften as her hand moves to my cheek. “I don’t know you, Gage. I have a feeling not many truly do.”
“I’ll let you know me. But only you.”
Her thumb brushes across my cheek slowly.
“I need time. Tonight was a lot.”
My chest cinches at her words, not meaning to let them affect me so deeply, but I know she’s seen my reaction cross my face.
