She slams her mouth shut, her shoulders sagging. She’s changed her entire demeanor in the blink of an eye, tempting me to pity her. To put an end to this. To hug her.
No.
“Talk, Skylar, or else.”
“Noor else. I’ll tell you.” She looks at me from beneath her lashes, misery bleeding from her gaze. “I’ll tell you if you just stop hurting yourself. Please. I can’t lose you.”
I tilt my head, not saying a word.
She needs to say it. I have to trust that she understands.
“Thank you.” Her exhale is all emotion. All relief and love.
“Go on.” I adjust my aching cock in my jeans, because this—her, caring for me—is hotter than if she were down here on her knees sucking me off. “You’ve got five seconds to start talking, or I’ll skin my entire arm.”
I’m not bullshitting her. I mean it. For her, I’d do that.
That, and so much more.
“I heard you. I really heard you, I swear. You’re replacing them. The farmhouse, the things I saw there.”
“Replacing them with what?” Keeping my voice level is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
I’m choking on how much I love her.
“With you. If all I see is you bleeding for me, I’ll forget them.” Her chest heaves, breasts rising and falling. Her bottom lip trembles as she sucks in air. “You’ve made your point. You’re right. I don’t even care how Bronwyn died anymore, or that I wasn’t the one to kill her. Okay? Put the knife down. Please. Come to me.”
I whip my shirt over my head, marking a shallow X cut over my heart. “This,” I say. “This is where you’ll always stay.”
“Please, stop.”
“I will now.”
The knife clatters to the floor. I gather blood from the fresh wound over my chest. When it’s soaked, I go over to her.
“Don’t you ever do that again.” She leans into my hand as I cup her jaw with my blood-soaked hand. “I understand why you did it, but I hated it. If anyone should be bleeding, should be hurting, it should be me. Always me.”
“Like hell.” With my mouth, I take what’s mine, and it’s her. I bite her lip, taste her scream, and chase it with my tongue. “Tell me, what will you remember about today? Ten years from now? Thirty? Fifty?”
When she doesn’t answer, my palm cracks against her ass, then smears her blood on her. We’re a mess—perfect, brutal chaos.
“Please,” she mumbles. “Please.”
Taking a deep breath, I pull back. Tilt her face higher, forcing her to look into my soul.
She does. Her eyes flash as she remembers our bond. The truth of us.
“Out of everything that happened today, I’ll remember you. Only you.” Another tear slips free. “Knox, does that make me a bad person?”
“No, Trouble. Not at all.”
27
SKYLAR
“That makes you perfect. Good. Right.” Heat blazes in Knox’s eyes, that dark determination cutting into me like a second blade. “She wasn’t. She hurt you, over and over throughout the years. There’s nothing wrong with leaving her death behind. With moving forward.”
My shoulders scream. My arms strain. The gashes on my body sting.
