Which was good, because I didn’t want to entertain the idea of what my life would be like if he did.
No, I knew exactly what my life would be like if he did. Exactly the same as it had been before him. Structured. Logical. Sensible.
In other words, a slow fucking death.
“You’re angry at me for making you love me,” I whispered, my throat struggling against his grip.
“Of course I fuckin’ am,” he hissed. “I’m not meant to love you. You’re not meant to love me back, but you do, and every time I hear you say it, it hits me in the cock.” He paused, pressing the cock in question against my body, and my skin answered his call. He moved his hand so it no longer gripped my neck but caressed it. “It hits me fuckin’ everywhere,” he murmured.
“You’re angry that I gave you something to love when all you wanted was something to hate,” I surmised, unblinking and taking in all of his feral beauty.
“I don’t deserve somethin’ to love,” he growled, his body shaking.
I could sense his need to stalk away. To inflict violence on something, someone. I knew it in his eyes, saw his beast itching to come out.
I hooked a finger into one of his belt loops, yanking him in and making sure he wasn’t going to inflict pain on anyone but me.
He let out a harsh hiss as his hard length pressed against me once more.
“It’s not up to you to say what I deserve. Nor is it up to you to say what you deserve, because I know you don’t think you deserve anything but a lifetime of punishment. That’s not happening. I won’t let it.”
His jaw tightened as he battled with something behind his eyes, and then he backed away.
“You might change your mind after this,” he said.
I froze, knowing exactly what he meant. What he was going to do. He was going to show me the scars beneath his ruined skin.
“You know how you said it broke your mom thinking about how your brother never had a reason to go down the path he did? How she tortured herself, blamed herself for maybe doing one minute thing wrong?”
All I could do was nod, remembering the conversation we’d had a handful of nights ago, Gage’s arms around me, darkness surrounding us.
“I had a mom like that too,” he said, his face so blank, so calm, it hurt to look at. Because I knew when Gage looked the calmest, that’s when he was hurting the most.
I’d wanted this for so long, but now, seeing the beginning of it, it terrified me. And I wasn’t sure I wanted it anymore. Because I was scared I wouldn’t be able to be strong for him. Terrified I’d break down in the face of his demons, and he’d realize I wasn’t strong enough for them.
“I don’t know if she was wonderin’ the same things, if she’s still wondering the same things, my mom,” he continued. “I’m sure she is, ’cause she’s a good person. The best.” He paused. “Didn’t know that when I was a kid. Didn’t appreciate that. That when I started to get wild, wilder than a teenager should, they punished me because they loved me. They were terrified that road I’d somehow found myself on would swallow me up. So they tried to stop that. They couldn’t.”
His fists were clenched at his sides.
“They kicked me out, hoping that would jerk me out of my bullshit. That I’d man up. But I didn’t man up, just used that as an excuse as only a cowardly boy could. Let the underworld yank me down. Ran with some bad people doing worse shit for a couple of years. Then I met her.”
I instantly hated her. I couldn’t explain why—she was one fricking word, a woman without a face, without a name. She could be completely and totally innocent. But I knew better. Because there was a lot poured into that one single word, and none of it had anything to do with innocence.
“She didn’t have the same problems as me in the beginning, but we had the same problems at the end.” His voice was still flat and cold. “I was under the impression that no one in my life gave a shit about me because they weren’t enabling my destructive behavior. She was born out of destructive behavior. From people who didn’t give a shit about her, only so much as the paycheck from the state she’d given them. She was more lost, more damaged than me, and fuck if I wanted to fix her. That was my first mistake. You can’t fix broken people.”
The sentence hit me in the heart, so much so that I flinched. Gage saw it, of course. Gage saw everything.
His jaw tightened, but he continued.