“You think it’s easy to switch off what I’ve lived through? What I knew behind bars? You think I want to be a shadow of the monster my father once was? Do you think I like killing?”
“What the hell does that have to do with me?”
He grabbed my wrists one-handed and pushed them over my head, forcing me back on the bed as he crawled on top of me. His eyes locked on mine menacingly.
“Do you think I want to spend every free minute I have thinking about the girl I almost adopted? Do you think I want to fantasize about how a life with the woman whose brother I killed could be? Do you think it’s easy forme to get those pictures of you out of my head? I stared at them every day for the last two years.” His grip tightened around my wrists. His body warmed me, his weight smothering my resistance. And when his lips pressed to my forehead, my chin, and my throat, I leaned into it, begging for more. “Do you think that every time I see you, I want to remember how you felt naked against me? How soft your skin was? How warm and tight you were around my cock? How perfectly we fit together? I can’t get you out of my head. I can’t work. I can’t think. Is that what you want to hear?” His voice rose. “I was supposed to create distance between us. I had resigned myself to that. For you. For me. For everyone. But you couldn’t stay away, and now…”
“You’re blaming me?”
“I’m as much to blame.”
“Then what do you want?” I cried out, twisting my wrists around and freeing them from his hold.
“I need my revenge. I need to make the bastards pay. You should understand better than most.”
I grabbed onto the lapels of his jacket and shook him.
“So I get stomped on in the process? Am I a game to you? A toy? A chess piece? Do I have to take my pick?”
“You’re a weakness I never expected, yet a craving I need. You’re the joy I never realized I was missing. You’re the woman I want but can’t have.”
“Says who? Right now, all I’m hearing when it comes to us is that you don’t know what you want.”
“I do, but I shouldn’t want it.”
“You can have anything as long as you want it enough and are willing to bear the consequences to get it and keep it.”
He breathed against my skin, his face caressing mine. “You already said I couldn’t have you. A date was the best you could give.”
I shoved against his chest. “No, I said I refused to be temporary. I refuse to be used, to be forgotten, to be unloved, and to be kept a secret. I don’t want something fake.” I sagged beneath him. “I want it to be real. I wanted there to be an us, but after tonight…I don’t know if that’s possible.”
His forehead pressed against mine. “Tonight was…particular.”
I searched his eyes. They weren’t stoic, but they weren’t begging for forgiveness either. “You ignored me. You acted as if I wasn’t there. Just a sidepiece to be discarded at the right time and place. You think that’s okay?”
“The situation demanded it. The person standing by my side needs to understand those things and adapt.”
“Then I’m not the right person.” I turned my head away, but he rolled us onto our sides to face each other.
“If I say you are?”
“That’s a lie. If you wanted me as that person, even just a little bit, you would’ve told me the plan. You would’ve included me. Trusted me. I knew you were using me to find Dimakos before I even walked through the restaurant’s doors, but I wanted to give you a chance. You made your choice.”
My eyes watered, but I didn’t blink and let tears run. His long, thick fingers cupped my face, but I shook my head.
“What I thought was possible between us was nothing more than a stupid crush I’d built up in my head.”
“No. No, it wasn’t.” There was a desperation building in his touch, his voice, his eyes, that left me more confused than ever.
“I can’t keep doing this with you. On, off. I’m not a light switch. I won’t be your fake wife. I won’t be your disposable lover either. You want revenge, go for it, but don’t ever make me an unwilling tool again. You need my help, ask. And if I agree, then make me a part of it. Don’t leave me out.”
“Now you’re telling me what to do.”
“Do you even want me in your life? I don’t mean as the family doctor, or as Tore’s family, or even as your secret pen pal anymore. Do you want me as more?” He sat up, his expression closed off. “Because I do, and you being here makes me think that you do too, but if a tool is all you want, I’ll let that go, faster than you think.”
“You’re that fickle?”
“No. I’m that decisive. I won’t compromise on what I want. I won’t give in because of how I feel for a man. If that man deserves me, he won’t suppress me. He won’t ostracize me. He won’t leave me behind. He’ll treasure me. I thought it would be you, but I won’t settle if it’s not. So what do you want?”
