She gasps. I like her gasp. It relaxes her jaw even more, making my dick hard and ready to slip inside that sexy mouth of hers.
“Crude.Beyondcrude.” Her eyes narrow. “Touring with your band… ‘getting laid…’ Did brash comments like that really work for you?”
I lean in closer. Her breath hitches again. Full lips part. That cherry tongue of hers makes a lazy swipe along her bottom lip. Why do I do this to myself? I’m fucking hard right now.
“OW!”
I grin with my teeth still clamped around her nipple, my tongue leaving a wet mark on her shirt. “Yes, it does work for me,” I whisper after releasing her nipple.
“Not for me.”
“Liar.” I climb the rest of the way up then grab her waist to pull her to her feet.
She winces, a quick breath seething through her teeth.
“What’s—” It hits me like a ton of bricks dropped on my chest. I release my grip on her waist and slide up the back of her shirt, revealing the cut on her back whereIcut her.
“It’s fine.”
It’s not fucking fine. I cut her. It wasn’t an accident. Nothing about that is fine. Even as she says the words, the look on her face contradicts them.
It’s not fine.
“Why?” she whispers. Her gaze lowers to her feet as she drops her chin.
I knew it was coming. Scarlet Stone is a lot of things, but she’s not stupid. It wasn’t domestic abuse. I didn’t hit her in a fit of rage then fall to my knees and beg for forgiveness. The sex. The apologies. Even her willingness to forgive me can’t replace what she deserves most—an explanation.
“I hated life—my life.”
She looks up, disbelief morphing her face in tight lines and a painful frown.
“I wanted you to hate me. IthoughtI wanted you to hate me.” I shake my head and turn toward the wall hidden behind piles of boxes covered in dust and cobwebs. “Ames stood at his window, probably a dozen or more times. The shot was there. All I could see through the scope was you. I’d close my eyes, trying to erase you from my mind, that’s when I’d hear the click.” I brush my hand along one of the boxes, dispersing the dust into a thin cloud.
“What click?” The defeat in her voice resurrects the pain I’ve tried to suppress for the past twenty-four hours.
“You.” Something between a grunt and a laugh rips from my chest. “You pulled the fucking trigger.Click.” I close my eyes.Click. I can hear it as clear as I did the moment she did it. Scarlet lived. I died that day. “I didn’t know about the cancer. You…” my eyes pinch shut “…you made me pause. It was a long blink, a deep breath, a spark of doubt. Ournothingwas that pause, a glimpse of an alternate future, a breath of hesitation.”
“I made you question your purpose,” she whispers.
“Yes.” Opening my eyes, I swallow past the constricting pain in my throat. “You were this light. Warm. Blinding. Breathtaking. For an incredibly short moment, I thought you could…” I clear my throat “…save me.”
Her body presses to my back, hands sliding up my chest. I hug her hands to me. There’s that warmth. She’s alive. I don’t ever want to let her go.
“But I pulled the trigger.”
Click.
I nod. “My father said when he found my mom there was so much blood. Her head was just—” Fuck, this is still so raw. “I imagine it was very much like how I found my father after he—”
“I’m sorry.”
I shake my head. “I never really understood why my dad did it. He had me. He hadsomething. You shattered my whole fucking world when you pulled the trigger.”
“Theo…” She hugs me tighter, her body shaking in silent sobs.
“I knew what made a person want to kill another. I lived and breathed that hatred every day. But I never could understand the amount of self-loathing that brought someone to take their own life. Until…”
Scarlet releases a strangled sob. I squeeze her hands and press them firm to my chest.
