He agitates me, challenges me, and yet something about it keeps pulling me back toward him, ever since the first barb he made that night on campus.
Now, standing here with his gaze locked on me, I feel the tight coil of it again. Just looking at his face has me on edge, every muscle tense and ready, my tongue itching to cut loose with insults. It’s like my whole body is already anticipating a fight, desperate for the release of it.
The energy swirling within me takes my breath away as I imagine what I look like, poised and ready to clash. The sketch of my self-portrait comes to mind. The version of me that is so full of life and ready to tackle anything. The version of me I never thought I’d be.
He helps bring that fire out within me. The woman who will fight for her dreams and not let anyone get in her way.
My chest heaves with the uneven breaths I take in an attempt to shove that realization far into the depths of my mind. The silence stretches as he just stands there, steady and immovable, like he’s daring me to start the fight.
A prickle runs across my skin with the desire to do exactly that and I seize onto it with both hands, desperate for anything to draw me away from the unwelcome memories of my mother and the softer thoughts about Elias.
“Does staring at me like that make you feel useful?” I bite out. “Or do you get off watching me break apart? That has to be why you stood there and watched Terrance rip me open.”
A muscle ticks in his cheek, the only crack in that stone-cold mask, and then the words lash out of him. “Is that what you want to think about me? That I tucked those memories of your pained screams away to use as spank bank material?”
He takes a step closer to me, somehow making me feel like the prey here, despite knowing my abilities make me the true predator between us.
“Sure, let’s go with that,” he muses in a deep timbre that sends a shiver down my spine. He takes another step closer. “I stroked myself thinking about your lips parted and screaming, imagining filling it with my cock. You’d be helpless to me doing whatever I wanted to you, restrained to that metal table.”
The mention of the table and restraints burns fury through my veins before despair can drag me under again. “Fuck you,” I hiss, lifting my chin to look him in the eyes. “I know you’re only saying that to rile me up.”
I want to think that the certainty in knowing he’s lying is what allows the smallest, most fucked-up part of me to not tremble at the thought of his cock buried in my throat.
“Perhaps,” he rumbles.
His boots crunch over broken glass and it’s like a bucket of cold water dumped over my mind, snapping me to reality. Logic begins to set in, reminding me that’s the last thing I should ever be clinging to right now. But as soon as I try to push it away, my heart hammers with the reminders of the images that will replace it.
A whimper crawls up my throat and I can’t even find the energy to be ashamed of that sound as Elias’s eyes narrow at me.
“Hurting yourself won’t bring her back, Briar.”
My eyes slam shut as my hands curl at my sides, my nails digging into my stinging palms.
I don’t want to think about any of it. I don’t want to feel my mind and heart ripping open, over and over.
A warmth covering my hands jolts my eyes open as he slowly pulls them up to rest palms up between us. The glimpse of sadness in his eyes as he looks at the ruined skin just beginning to heal makes my pulse stutter.
He lets out a ragged breath before his eyes fill with heat once more as they drag up slowly to rest on my face. “You want someone to blame and hurt? Fine. Blame me. Hurt me. We’re the reason you were in that hell to begin with and why your mom is there now.”
The fire licking at my chest is instantaneous.
“You think I don’t already?!” My voice fractures, a scream cracking into a sob. “Every time I close my eyes, I see your faces. I see you standing there while he carved me open.”
My hand lashes out before I can stop it, smacking a picture frame off my dresser, the glass shattering across the wall. He doesn’t duck or so much as blink.
“Throw it at me,” he growls out. “Scream at me. If you need a body to bleed your rage into, I’m right fucking here.”
My jaw clenches at his last words.
He is here.
Right when I needed someone, and he’s willing to take all of my anger head-on.
My vision blurs at the edges as rage tangles with something hotter and sharper, until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
“Why is it you?” The words rip out of me, trembling between anger and desperation. “Why is it always you who gets under my skin?”
His gaze locks on mine, unflinching and merciless. “Because I don’t lie to you. I won’t wrap you in pretty words and coddle you.”
