Page 304 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

‘Tell me you don’t love me. Say it.’

His eyes are closed, so it doesn’t count.

Cannot count.

‘I don’t love you.’

‘Then just fuck me.’

‘No. We’re leaving.’

Jules locks his legs around him. ‘If you don’t love me, it can be just sex.’

‘I don’t want that.’

‘Well, I do, and you ruined my sure thing, you piece of shit.’

‘I’m not your fucking sex toy,’ Lachlan snaps, eyes opening in a flash of anger, but it’s a mistake. A trap he should have recognised. Chaos is this boy’s natural weapon, and he wields it with intimate precision.

‘You’re so beautiful when you’re angry,’ Jules whispers, lifting one hand to stroke Lachlan’s face. ‘Now look at me and say it.’

‘We’re going home.’

‘Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t love me.’

‘I…’ His throat closes around the gigantic lie, caught.

Lachlan draws back. Jules doesn’t let him.

He keeps him.

‘Go on, tell me you don’t love me.’

‘It doesn’t matter. We’re done.’ His voice shakes, his body too. ‘You and I are done. We’re not together anymore. We’re…’ He trails off, seeing the blood slide down Jules’ mouth in a thin ribbon.

He did that.

He hurt him. Lachlan hurt him.

He already hurt him far worse, but this is the first time he drew blood.

All he wants to do is kiss it better.

Apologise.

Give up, give in, give his heart on a platter.

Part of him wants to.

Part of him is willing.

But Jules is drunk, more so than Lachlan’s ever seen.

And if he kisses him now, he doesn’t know that he’ll stop.

So he forces himself back, wrenches free and goes to the edge where it’s cooler, where the winter bites his lungs from the inside out and the cold kills what naïve passion was brewing within.

People are coming up from beneath.