He does remember everything and now I know why.
Because like mine, his present is the product of his past too.
Our past.
Instead of fighting against it, the past and his tight grip, I let myself go loose then. “I remember.” I let the floodgates open. I let this one memory douse me. “I remember that you let me go. You let me escape your clutches.”
His eyes narrow for a second. “Unscathed.”
Maybe it’s madness. Insanity. Maybe Mercury is in retrograde tonight.
Because none of it feels wrong.
Remembering doesn’t feel wrong. Rememberingwith himdoesn’t feel like wrong either. It doesn’t feel like I’m about to drink a toxic potion labeled love.
“I didn’t want you to,” I tell him, which of course he knows but still.
His fingers around my wrist tighten as if to say that he won’t make the same mistake again. He won’t let me out of his evil clutches a second time.
“I know.” His jaw tics as if remembering it. “Hardest fucking thing I’ve ever done in my life. Noblest fucking thing too.”
“And also so atypical of you.”
“Fuck yeah, I’m not a good guy.”
“No, you’re not. But that night you were.” I breathe heavily. “For me.”
Another tic of his jaw. “Yeah.”
I bite my lip before saying, “It’s strange, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“That I become a bad girl for you and you become a good guy for me.”
His lips twist with a humorless smile again. “Yeah. Although it wasn’t really worth it.”
“What wasn’t?”
“Becoming a good guy.”
I frown. “Why not?”
“Because it sucked. Being the good guy.” His grip on my wrist shifts as he continues, “Especially when you have a monster boner in your pants refusing to let up. For days.”
“For d-days?”
“Yeah, what the fuck did you think would happen, Fae? When you give me a lap dance and beg me to bang your brains out.”
“I didn’t beg,” I protest and also lie.
Because I did.
He chuckles again because he knows I’m lying and continues, “And when my Mustang smelled like you.”
“It did?”
“Yeah, for weeks after that. Even though you drowned it in the lake for your revenge. Even though I had to change the seats, I’d still smell you. I’d get a whiff of your candy smell and just like that I’d get a motherfucking boner the size of your pretty little arm in the middle of the day.”
