I try to hide the scarf, but his gaze pins it instantly. His eyes flick from my shaking hands to my wet cheeks, and I can’t breathe.
He stalks forward, slow, deliberate, a predator that already knows his prey has no chance. The scarf slips from my hands and flutters to the floor, a surrender I didn’t mean to give.
“What the fuck is this?” His voice is rough, dangerous.
I shake my head, whispering, “It’s nothing.” My voice cracks. “I just… I miss her. I miss who I was before?—”
Before you.
The words choke in my throat.
Dean doesn’t let me finish. His hand fists in my hair, tilting my head back, forcing me to look at him. His breath sears my face, and his eyes burn like he already knows every ugly thing I’m about to confess.
“You’re crying over scraps,” he growls. “Crying over ghosts. You think you lost yourself?” His thumb smears a tear across my cheek, rough and tender all at once. “No. I took you. I own you. And you’re still fucking mine.”
The sob rips out of me, half pain, half need. “I don’t even recognise myself anymore.”
He presses his forehead to mine, voice a deadly whisper. “Good. That’s the point.”
And then his mouth is on me — not gentle, not soft, but claiming. The kiss is teeth and salt and breath stolen right out of me, his hand locking my jaw until I can’t pull away, until I’m drowning in him, in his fury, in his possession.
When he finally breaks the kiss, his words brand me deeper than any touch ever could.
“You don’t get to mourn what’s mine to erase.”
My lips are bruised, swollen, and trembling under his mouth, and I can still feel his words echoing inside me as if they carved themselves into my bones.
You don’t get to mourn what’s mine to erase.
It should shatter me. Maybe it does. The scarf is still at my feet, limp and forgotten, and for a split second I think about dropping to my knees and scooping it back up, clutching at the last piece of myself that isn’t tangled up in him. But then his hand tightens in my hair, reminding me that there is no “before.” Not anymore.
My chest heaves against his, tears still leaking down my face. I hate how easy it is for him to wipe them away, not with tenderness, but with ownership. Like every tear proves him right.
“Dean…” My broken voice barely whispered. “I can’t… I can’t live like this. Caught between who I was and who you?—”
He cuts me off with a cruel sound in his throat, dragging my head back further until the sting brings another tear sliding down.
“You think you have a choice?” His voice is molten steel. “Brooklyn, the only thing you’ve lost is the illusion that you were ever free of me.”
A sob catches in my throat. I try to shove at his chest, but it’s useless. He doesn’t even sway. His other hand catches my wrist mid-push, slamming it to the wall beside my head. I’m caged, pinned, shaking.
And God help me, my body answers him anyway. My pulse kicks so hard it feels like it’s in every vein, every nerve. My breath hitches in a way that betrays me completely.
He sees it. Of course he does.
Dean leans in closer, voice so low it’s more like a growl against my skin. “Say it. Say you still want me.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, because the truth is already on my tongue and I hate myself for it.
“I… I do,” I whisper, choking on the admission. “I still want you.”
His grip on me softens just enough to make the contrast sting worse. His forehead presses against mine again, damp with my tears. For one impossible heartbeat, it feels like he’s breaking too, like this fight isn’t just mine.
“You think you don’t belong in my world,” he whispers, voice hoarse now, fraying at the edges. “But you’re wrong. You’re the only thing that keeps me breathing in it.”
The sob that rips out of me is almost a laugh, raw and cracked. “You’ll destroy me.”
His lips graze mine again, not a kiss this time but a vow. “Then I’ll destroy every other version of you first. Until the only Brooklyn that exists is the one who’s mine.”
