Another hit. My hands are shaking so badly I can barely aim.
“Sophia—”
“I woke up every single morning and I didn't know.” I cry, tears lapping past my lips. “I didn't know, Reth, and you just—you just stood there and you said go like it was nothing, like I was nothing?—”
“You were never nothing.”
“Then why did you leave me!” It rips out of me, ragged and enormous, months of swallowed terror finally given a voice. “Then why did you fucking. Leave. Me!” I hit his chest again and again, and on the third strike he catches my wrists and holds them, both of his hands wrapped around both of mine, absorbing every tremor.
“I’m sorry,” is all he says. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Why couldn’t you just come with us? Why wasn’t I enough of a reason for you to choose me?”
“You were the only reason.” His voice is so quiet it barely exists, but it cuts straight through me. “You were the only reason for any of it. All of it. Every goddamn choice I made.”
“Then why—” My voice breaks completely, tears streaming hot down my face. “Why did it feel like I wasn’t enough to make you stay?”
“Because if I came with you, she would never have stopped.” His hands tighten around my wrists. “She would have followed. She would have found you. And she would have made you pay for being the one thing I chose over her. I couldn’t—” His jaw flexes, eyes shining with something raw and shattered. “I couldn’t let that happen to you. I would rather walk back into hell every single day for the rest of my life than let her touch even one hair on your head. I would rather die than watch her break you because of me.”
I’m crying so hard I can barely see him anymore. The sobs tear out of me, and it’s ugly, and it’s raw, and it hurts. “Why did you take me, Nazareth? Why did you make me fall in love with you? I was fine before you.”
“You don’t think I know that?”
“Then why?” I scream at him, trying to jerk my hands free. “Why did?—”
“I had no fucking choice,” he snaps and with both hands pivots me, pulling my back against him, pinning my arms to my chest with his, lips low against my ear. “If I didn’t take you, she would have. And I’ve survived hell more than once, Sophia, but that’s something I won’t survive. I don’t want that fucking womananywhere near you. So I took you, but I never, and this I swear to you, I never wanted you to fall in love with me. That’s the last thing I fucking wanted.”
“Well, too bad, because I did,” I murmur. “Somewhere between being locked in that house and those fucking pink lollipops, I fell for you, and it hurts.”
“I’m sorry.” His voice fractures. “I’m so fucking sorry, baby.”
“I hate it,” I choke out, voice thick and broken. “I hate all of it. I hate that you took me. Hate that you left me. I hate that you were right. I hate that I understand why you did it, and I still hate it so much it feels like it’s tearing me apart.”
“Jesus, Sophia.”
“It’s not fair.” I sink back against him, crying like my soul has been cracked open, like I’m bleeding out and I don’t know how to stop it. “You had no right to make me fall in love with you.”
“I know.” His breath brushes my neck, and a shiver wracks through me. “I know, baby.” His lips press against my shoulder, warm, and when his tongue touches my skin, my legs quiver.
“You’re going to leave me again, aren’t you?” I whisper.
A long silence stretches between us, filled only with the wind and the distant hum of the city far below.
“Not tonight,” he murmurs against my collarbone. It’s not enough, but somehow, somewhere deep, it’s enough…for now. “I’ll do everything in my power,” he says carefully, voice rough with emotion, “to make sure there’s never a reason to.”
Whatever’s left of the anger dissolves in the devastating way of things that were never really about anger in the first place. Allthat’s left is relief so sharp it hurts. Need so deep it feels like it might swallow me whole.
His fingers find my throat and force my face up and to the side. With a single, leisurely stroke of his tongue, he licks the tears from my cheek, then kisses the corner of my mouth, slow and hungry, until my lips part and I let him back in. This time the kiss is sharper, possessive, the kind of kiss that bruises because it’s about proving a point—not to me, but to himself. That I’m here. That I’m his.
I gasp, caught between pleasure and agony, and he mouths against my jaw, voice dark and trembling, “I need you.”
A broken moan slips from my lips when he palms my breast, squeezing hard enough to bruise. His thumb drags over my nipple through the thin fabric, circling, teasing, then pinching until the sharp jolt shoots straight to my clit. He swallows every sound I make, kissing me deeper, filthier, until my lungs burn and my head spins and all I can do is melt back against his chest, drowning in the taste of months of starvation.
“I missed your taste,” he rasps, voice wrecked and raw. “Missed the way you sound when I touch you.”
He tears through the mesh keyhole of my dress with a vicious rip, yanking the fabric aside to expose my breast completely. His hand cups it possessively, skin on skin, rough and trembling as he rolls my nipple between his fingers until I’m arching back into him with a desperate whimper.
“Goddammit, woman.” His hips roll against my ass, letting me feel the thick, heavy length of his cock straining against his pants, rock-hard and throbbing for me. “I’ve been dying for you,Sophia. It’s like I can’t breathe. I want inside you so much it hurts.”
