I took another hesitant step back, wanting to give her some room to breathe. But she didn't breathe. She kept ranting, pacing now, hands gesticulating with jerky, wild movements.
"You want to kill him because he laid his hands on me? After what you did? He's nothing."
"Anna." I put my hands up in front of me, trying to calm her down. The same hands that had fastened that necklace. That had claimed every inch of her body.
"No, don't ‘Anna’ me. You don't have the right to complain about another man hurting me when you strapped a fucking bomb around my throat for the last three days.
“I have been waiting for it to go off, thinking every second might be my last, having the reality of how sad and pathetic my life is, of how no one loves me and no one would care if I was gone, shoved down my throat every minute of every day. And you're mad that he hit me?"
Each word was a bullet. I felt them all land, tearing through tissue, lodging in bone.
"Anna," I tried again, and she turned on me. Her gray eyes were the same color as a powerful winter storm. And her fingers were like claws as they tried to rip and tear at the necklace, scratching at the skin of her neck instead. Fresh blood welled up in thin lines. She didn't even seem to notice.
She had lost all semblance of control, and the stress had finally broken her.
This was my fault. I did this to her. I'd broken her wings.
A knot formed in my stomach. Then twisted. Tightened. Threatened to strangle me from the inside out.
"My life was okay before you. I thought I was happy. I thought I knew what kind of simple life I wanted, and then you had to show up and ruin everything.” Her glare would heat the sun.
“It wasn't enough for you to just threaten me. No, you had to play these fucked up little mind games. One minute you're putting a bomb around my throat and threatening me,” she raged, “the next you're standing up to my mother for me. Then you're bending me over the fucking bathroom sink and fucking me within an inch of my sanity, and then you’re spanking me.
“And now you want to kill my ex, who only hit me? He's nothing compared to the shit that you've put me through. Or is that it? You’re not upset because he hit me. You’re pissed because he messed with your favorite little fuck toy."
The words "fuck toy" coming from her mouth—that beautiful, defiant mouth I'd claimed over and over—made my cock twitch even as rage flooded my system. The dichotomy was maddening. I was furious and aroused and drowning in guilt all at once.
She doubled over and started laughing, a crazy, maniacal sound. "Fuck toy."
The sound of it—broken and wild and wrong—made my hands curl into fists.
I didn't know what to say. For the first time in my life, I was genuinely speechless.
Anna was hysterical, screaming and ranting, and she tore at the necklace, but nothing she was saying was wrong.
I did this to her. I had brought this violent chaos into her life. She was right. But I needed to make her stop. I needed to fix what I broke. Even if I had to break her a little more first to put her back together.
I grabbed her arms, pulling them to her sides and pulling her into me, and I tried to kiss her—anything to make her soul-wrenching cries and laughter stop. To swallow those sounds, to take them into myself where they belonged.
This time, she didn't melt into my embrace after a second.
She fought, not the apathetic fight of a woman who wanted to pretend that she didn’t like me. But the actual feral fighting of a woman who had had enough. Teeth bared. Nails out. Survival mode.
Her body struggled as she tried in vain to pull out of my arms, her fingers curled into claws as they scratched at my chest, leaving hot lines of pain even through my shirt. But I didn't let her get away. I didn't let her go.
Not until she dropped her hands. For a second, I thought she was done fighting, until her hand flew through the air and slammed across my face, her fingers just touching my ears as her palm smashed into my jaw hard enough that I actually tasted blood. The copper tang flooded my mouth. My head snapped to the side.
For a heartbeat, we both froze. Her palm still raised, trembling. My face turned away, jaw throbbing.
Then something snapped inside me.
This was too much.
She was out of control, chaos embodied, and I couldn't stand that.
I needed order. Needed to restore the balance between us. Needed her to remember exactly who she belonged to.
And there was only one way to get it.
