As I raise my chin, my pulse flutters in my neck, and I remain eerily still. I let my eyes trail over him, and the look of arrogance gleaming in his eyes almost makes me laugh. He thinks I’m putty in his hands, but he’s about to learn the hard way that I’m so far from the girl I used to be.
I clear my throat. “You should, because if you don’t, I would call that hope, and you know what they say about hope, it's fickle and callous.” I keep my voice toneless, though I swallow tightly. “Don’t let it fuck you too, Harlen.”
He falls back into the door with a thud and crosses his arms over his broad chest, his biceps flexing when a quiet laugh bubbles up his throat before static silence infiltrates the room. I can’t help but study the hard lines of muscle at his chest as it rises and falls against his shirt.
Why do all of the assholes have to be so good looking?
“Cherry, I–”
I cut him off before he can continue.
I had decided the moment I watched his back disappear into the canopy of shadows that I wouldn’t listen to anything he had to say.The words that drip off his tongue will only ever be lies.
I suppress a shudder. “Get the fuck out.”
“No,” he very simply retorts.
Is this how it’s going to go?
Always such an asshole.
My blood boils to temperatures that scorch my flesh. I want to smack him, throw a fist in his face, knee him in the fucking balls. I want to tear him apart with my hands,not my words.
The desire to let myself loose on him scares me.
You left me…like that.Broken, torn to pieces, a shell of a person.
I pace quickly toward him with fury in every step, and when I reach him, I rise onto the balls of my feet. My nipples tighten from our proximity, aching as they push against his white t-shirt.
It feels so good, and I try so hard not to think about it.
My nose brushes against the tip of his, our now heavy breaths mingling together. I’m surviving off his, and he’s surviving off mine.
It’s fucking bullshit.
Then I just say whatever comes to mind. “Your father took great care of me.” I spit each word in his face, my hands balling into tight fists at my sides.I want to hurt him.
He nods, completely unfazed by what I just said, and the featherlight touch of his lips over mine has me snatching away.
“Good, then he did exactly what I asked of him.” His words are a low growl in his chest, his breath whispering over my bare neck.
Harlen’s left hand cups my hip, and I shiver when he pulls me into him, though I don’t push it away.
I hate myself for that.
“I needed you.” My words are out before I can take them back, tears licking the backs of my eyes before one rogue bitch slips away.
His trembling hand wraps around my chin, pulling it up to him, my eyes locking onto his matching blue ones. He lets the solo rivulet roll down my cheek and drip off my jaw.
“Say it again,” he demands.
I bite the inside of my cheek, our breaths dancing over each other's lips. We stay like this, staring at each other like we are in some hypnotic trance before I step back and his hand falls away from my chin, from my hip, though we are still too close.
Nausea churns in my stomach as I battle with the wounds I fought so hard to stitch together. I can feel them slowly tearing apart.
I can’t let them come undone. I’ll bleed out.
I tilt my chin upward. There’s no weakness here, only strength. The kind I was forced to find the day he turned his back on me.
