“I have been patient, and I have shown you nothing but tenderness this entire time. But I told you,repeatedly—I am not a patient man. And right now, Dove, you are seriously testing my patience by shutting me off and denying me the only thing in this world that keeps me alive.”
Servers glide through the room like ghosts, and the crystal glasses catch the light from the chandeliers with every hand that picks them up. People shift and talk, and I watch them bewildered, wondering if anyone has heard us. But Rowan doesn’t seem to care about any of that.
“Let’s go,” he murmurs one last time, the timber of his low voice reaching down to my core.
When he takes my hand in his, I let him. He guides me through the crowd, and we leave the party through the doors leading to the Cross Hall.
I don’t look back once.
Rowan
“Sit down.”
“Dove…” I plead with my eyes, because I don’t want to fucking sit right now. I want to touch her, be all over her, and take what’s mine.
“Sit. The hell. Down.”
I shut the doors to the Lincoln Bedroom, making sure no one can hear us. And then… I oblige.
My cock grows harder at this new side of her. I love using her, making her do things the way I want. But fuck, I quite enjoy this other side of her just as much. Every day she surprises me. Every day she brings me to the edge of my sanity, then takes my hand and pulls me over to where we both fall.
“How could you?” She crosses her arms over her chest and brings a trembling hand to cover her mouth. Tears and rage spill out of her as if the walls she built around her heart have finally collapsed after weeks of keeping everything in. I’m here to gather every fucking drop. “How could you leave me? How could you eventhinkto do something like that?”
I take in a long breath, choosing my words carefully. “Angel, you know I didn’t have a—”
“Don’tspeak to me right now,” she snaps. My mouth pulls up in the corner, but I make an effort to refrain from smiling.
There you are. Fight me. Fight me and take what you need from me.
“You lied to me. Lied to your friends. You were so goddamn lucky I found out about your idiotic plan.”
I was.
“You know what hurts the most, Rowan?” She shakes her head, a disappointed smile on her pretty face. It breaks my fucking heart, but I’m aware it only shows me how much she cares. “That you didn’t trust me. You didn’t think of me highly enough to discuss that plan. Because if you had, I would’ve told you it’s the worst and most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard in my life. No, don’t touch me!”
I’m back on my feet, closing the space between us until our lips are inches apart. I can practically feel her anger rolling off of her. Despite every muscle in my body begging me to do so, I keep my hands to myself and refrain from touching her. Consent is always given, and right now, I don’t have a single fucking ounce of it to my name. She breathes against my chest, and I tilt my head down to catch her teary gaze.
“You areallI think about,” I say, my voice shaking with a violent burst of my obsession for her. “You walked under my skin one day and made a home there. I am possessed by you in ways I can’t begin to describe. I gave my life to save yours, yes, because there is nothing for me to come back to if you die. I am a selfish, wrathful man—but I am yours, and you are mine, and nothing else matters to me but that. You want an apology?” I shake my head. “Yes, okay, I’m sorry I couldn’t come up with a better plan. But if I had to, I’d do it again because it kept you breathing. It kept you alive.”
“I didn’t want that! Who are you to decide my life weighs more than yours?” She presses against my chest, getting away, and rounding the small table behind her. Torment flickers beneath my skin—I urge it to quiet down. She buries her face in her hands before looking up at me again. Wrapping her arms around herself, she asks, “How am I supposed to be with you from now on, to live in constant fear that one day I’ll wake up and you’ll be gone? That you won’t do something like that again? The thought hurts so much, Rowan…” She aches, visibly aches under my eyesas she refrains from crying. “It hurts so much that I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what… to do…”
“Dove…”
A sharp scoff exits her flared nostrils as she looks anywhere but into my eyes. “You didn’t do this for me. You did it for yourself. I hope you can at least understand that.”
My brows furrow at her words. I’ve never heard something more obscene.
“H-How could you think that? You’re… you’re wrong—”
“No. You did it for yourself, Rowan. Because your father treated you the way he did, told you that you were never good enough to walk this earth, and made you believe it. I understand your obsession. Oh God, I really fucking do. But what you did… turning yourself over… you did that because you never feel like you do enough. Like youareenough. You gave in to your father, and look what it’s done to us.”
The blow is sharp, and it hits me out of fucking nowhere. She might as well have slapped me across my face. I take a second to reel in the right words, but only the wrong ones come out.
“My obsession with you,” I mutter. “You don’t understand it, Dove. That’s why I did—”
“Oh!” she laughs, turning with her hands on her hips. “I don’t understand it? Right. Because howdareI feel the same way about you—about a man who truly has no value and doesn’t deserve anything from what he has—right?” Her voice lowers, and she makes a step toward me, every move charged with pure rage and a madness I recognize too well because I bask in it myself.
“I’m obsessed with you too, you goddamn bastard. It’s… it’s… like an intoxication holding onto your flesh, scurrying down your veins alongside your blood, entering every cell that keeps you alive and eating you up from the inside out. You can’t get it out of your system, nor do you want to. It consumes you,chews you up, and spits you out, then does it again. And again. And again. And it’s the scariest, most beautiful feeling I’ve ever experienced in my entire life. How’s that? Did I pass the fucking test?”
