Her voice slices me clean open.
“I kissed you because I missed you,” I say, and the words break on the way out. “Because I’ve spent a week trying to forget how you tasted and I can’t. I kissed you because I’m a selfish bastard who wanted one more hit before I let you go.”
Her jaw tightens.
My chest caves.
“You don’t get to keep doing this,” she says, voice soft but steady. “Kissing me like I’m the only thing keeping you breathing, and then regretting me.”
“I don’t regret you,” I growl, turning toward her. “I regret what I do to you. Look at you. You deserve better than a man who sees blood every time he blinks and hears screaming every time it’s quiet. Better than someone who thought you were a hallucination and still dropped to his knees for a taste.”
Her breath stutters.
Her throat works.
Her eyes shine like the aftermath of something quietly devastating.
“So that’s it?” she asks.
I laugh once—sharp, hollow, poisoned with self-loathing.
“That’s me, Butterfly. One good fuck. A thousand regrets.”
The silence that follows is thick enough to choke on.
She stands there, arms wrapped tight across her chest, shoulders trembling from the weight of everything I’ve said, everything I’ve taken, everything I never deserved—yet her voice is steady when she speaks.
“Then next time?” she whispers, eyes burning. “Don’t kiss me like you mean it.”
Then she turns.
Walks out.
Leaves me in the wreckage.
Leaves me exactly where she found me.
On the floor.
Bleeding.
Alone.
And for the first time in years?—
I feel every inch of it.
Chapter
Eleven
Cassandra
He thought I was a dream.
An hallucination.
Fuck, I thought…
