“Shelly.” His voice cracked, and I hoped it was over. I prayed that he’d gotten whatever anger he had out of his system, that he realized I wouldn’t judge him. I would, a little, but only as much as I judged myself, as anyone. How could you do that, just let them touch and use and hurt you like that? I had to; he had to. A million other jobs in the world, and somehow it had seemed like the only one.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” I whispered. I put my hand on his, and he jerked away.
“Don’t touch me.” It was a snarl, an animal sound carved into words.
I pulled back, frightened. Not of Luke but of the hurt inside him.
“I don’t…I don’t think of you any differently.” It was a lie, and we both knew it.
Dirt scuffed into the air as he pushed off the wall. “Of course. I’m still the noble one, the guy with the best intentions. That’s why you let me close, isn’t it?” His voice lowered. “That’s why you fell in love with me, isn’t that right? Because I was just the opposite of you, so much better than you.”
His words rang with truth. I shook my head. “It was you. Only you.”
“Stop telling me what you think I want to hear. Just for once, say something that’s you. Not a trick, just the honest-to-God truth.”
I whirled on him. “Fine. You want to know the truth? I hate it. I hate that I had to hear it from him instead of you. I hate that you had to go through that. I hate that the worst part of me, the worst things I ever felt or thought or had happen to me…they happened to you. I hate that because I love you. Don’t you get that, you big idiot? It kills me that you went through that. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, but you? It’s heartbreaking. You’re breaking my heart.”
He stilled. “What did you say?”
“I said you’re a big idiot.”
He grabbed my arms and backed me up against the wall. My toes pointed to the ground, barely touching. I felt like a doll. Like a child, though it didn’t feel as bad as it should—just bad enough.
“Don’t push me right now,” he muttered. “I can’t… It’s not… I’m not myself.”
No, this was finally him, unfettered and cracked open. Ironic that it had taken a brutal beating and imprisonment to release him. He was dark and angry, this man. Tortured and terrified that he wouldn’t be able to control that darkness, that anger. But he didn’t have to, not with me. That was the gift I could give him. That was how I’d be worthy.
I pushed at him, but he didn’t release me. I didn’t expect him too; we were too far in. He was too far gone. This was going to happen rough and hard and with pain so sweet we’d neither of us forget it, with a pleasure so cruel it would teach us both a lesson; it would leave marks so deep that I wouldn’t regret it when it was over.
“Just let it out,” I whispered.
“No,” he said. “It’s too much. I know how that feels. I know what it means and everything about it. You’ve been hurt so much. Abused and afraid and angry—so much. How could I hurt you more? How could I cause you any more pain?”
“Don’t you see? I want it all. Your pleasure, your pain. Anything you can give me, I crave it.”
The last words shattered in my mouth, pressed there by the force of his body and his rage. He unleashed it on me. His anger, carefully boxed and hidden, sprang open. The fear, so neatly caged, splintered all around us. He lashed at me with hands that forced my wrists against the wall, his mouth that pried mine open and stole my breath, the painful ridge against my stomach as he pushed and threatened and warned me away, but with nowhere to go and no desire to leave him, I yielded. It hadn’t been a lie; the pain he delivered was sweeter than the gentlest caress of a hundred-dollar bill. It was honest, and it was him.
I hadn’t lied about that either: I loved him. I had dressed it up with excuses, with reasons that made it okay to break the cardinal rule. He was unattainable, like Allie had said. He was unlike me in every way, but when those drapes were pulled away, they revealed a blinding white-hot wound. There wasn’t any reason to compel it, any logic to explain it, and that’s how I knew it was love.
Copper touched my tongue—my blood, his. An anguished sound disturbed the air around us—my pain, his pleasure. But no one would play the martyr tonight. Neither of us would pretend we didn’t want this, not anymore.
Chapter Thirteen
He shoved me to the floor, and I tumbled there, a flurry of dust and limbs, of bruises on my knees and a self-satisfied grunt in my throat. With fingers digging into my arm, he turned me over. I sank gratefully onto the concrete, my legs spread, body eager.