He flinches, paling slightly at the reminder. But he needs to feel this guilt. He needs to remember what he risks if he ever fucks up again. "Pick a word," he says, his voice shaking.
I think for a second, then smile. "Devil."
He grins, the first real smile I've seen from him in months. "Devil it is, then."
The tension drains out of the room, just a bit.
He walks around the desk, stopping a foot away from me. "Any other conditions?" he asks, his voice rough.
"Just one," I say, and this is the hardest one of all. "Promise that you won't break me again. If you ever feel like you're losing yourself again, you have to tell me. You don't get to protect me from you or hide the things that matter. You don't get to push me away or hurt me to punish yourself or keep secrets. Whatever you're facing, whatever you're feeling, we face it together."
He lifts a hand, slow and careful, and rests it on my elbow. It's a question, not a demand.
I nod, allowing him to pull me into his arms.
"I swear to you, I'll never break you again. I love you," he says, his voice breaking as he wraps himself around me, his entire body shuddering. "And I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry for everything I've done, princess."
I look up at him, the man who ruined me and rebuilt me and broke me again.
"I know," I say, and for the first time, I really mean it.
He kisses me, and it's nothing like the first time, or the last time, or any time in between.
It tastes like hope. Like violence and hunger. Like a future I never let myself imagine because I thought neither of us deserved it, not after everything we'd done to each other.
His mouth is rough, desperate. My hands fist in his shirt, dragging him closer until there isn't any air between us, until every inhale is his exhale, until I could almost believe we were the same ruined creature, split in two by accident and mended back together one painstaking, devastating stitch at a time. It's perfect in a way nothing ever has been.
When he breaks the kiss, he rests his forehead against mine. "I love you, princess. Every fucked-up, broken, monstrous piece of me is yours."
"I know," I whisper. And I do. I think I always did.
We stay there, in the wreckage of our old selves, in each other's arms, breathing each other in. For once, it doesn't hurt at all.
Chapter Twenty
Brielle
There's something about the way Asher closes the bedroom door that says I'm not getting out of here tonight until he's destroyed me again.
He flicks the lock, leans his weight against the jamb, and watches me with that ruinous hunger that somehow manages to broadcast exactly what he wants to do to me. Except…it never goes that way, not anymore. Not since I made him promise. Notsince he broke me open and decided he was afraid he'd put the pieces back together wrong.
Now, he just stands there with his arms crossed, his eyes boring into me, like if he stares hard enough, he might learn to trust himself enough to touch me and still be the man he promised to be.
He hasn't learned yet.
It's been three weeks since I forgave him. Three weeks of aching, of teasing, of his mouth on my skin, of his hands pinning me down, of his cock grinding against me until I'm shaking and gasping and clawing at him.
But it's never, ever more than that.
Every night, he kisses me until my lips are swollen, works me up until I'm a mess, then grits his teeth and backs off, self-loathing pouring off him in waves. He'll hold me, stroke my hair, tell me that I'm beautiful, that I'm perfect, that I'm the only thing he wants in this world.
And then he'll roll over and stare into the dark for hours. He doesn't really sleep. He doesn't move, either. He doesn't do anything except stare, trying to find the version of himself he thinks he has to become to earn me.
It's driving me out of my goddamn mind.
When I made him promise not to break me again, this isn't what I had in mind. It isn't what I want. It isn't what I need from him, either.
I need him to be both monster and man—the way he was on that plane on the way to Los Angeles. The way he was in quiet moments when he let himself forget, for even a second, to hate himself and let me in. The way he was when he allowed himself to ruin me with his hands and mouth and cock and then whispered sweetness in my ear afterward.
