She blocks my path and as much as I want to physically pick her up and move her out of the way so I can wear a hole in the fucking carpet until I can think rationally, I can’t. I want to touch her so bad. Take her. Hold her. Accept her.

But I can’t.

… no one will ever be able to love you …

She doesn’t trust me.

… you’re horrible and disgusting and poisoned inside …

She’s going to leave me.

… you’re like a toxin that will kill them …

Shatter me.

… I’m the only one that is ever allowed to love you …

Break me.

… you’re worthless, Colty …

I can do worse and she can do better.

Let her go.

Push her away.

Save her.

“You really want to know?” I shout at her, hoping she flees and runs at the question but knowing not in a million years that she will. “You really want to know?”

She stands on her tiptoes, those glints of violet boring into mine, daring me to confirm what she already thinks is true in her heart. “Tell me.” Her voice is a quiet calm when she says it. “Are you that Goddamn chicken shit you can’t fess up and just admit it? I need to hear it come out of your mouth so I can get the fuck over you and get on with my life!”

I don’t know how I swallow. I don’t know how I speak, but the words are out of my mouth before I know it. Walls re-erected and solitary confinement a Siren’s song calling to me. “I fucked Tawny.”

Poison spread.

Ship crashing against the treacherous ocean rocks.

Silence settles around us but I can hear the locking of the cell.

Feel the quicksand smothering my lungs.

The death of my resurrected soul.

“You coward!” she screams, hysteria bubbling up. “You goddamn fucking coward!”

“Coward?” I shout. Does she have any fucking clue I’m trying to save her? Trying to push her away before I can fuck this up even further? Fuck her over any further? Trying to stem the sudden feeling of need? “Coward?” I ask, trying to cover up every emotion that wants to pour out of my mouth and make this even worse. I’ll take the pain, but fuck me if I don’t want her to know that I tried to tell her. That I tried and she ignored.

Get your head on straight, Donavan. You either want her or you don’t. Decide. Figure it out because this cerebral war is fucking killing you.

Turn it back on her.

“What about you? You’re so fucking stubborn that you’ve had the truth staring you in the face for three fucking weeks. You’re up there so high and mighty on your goddamn horse you think you know everything! Well you don’t, Rylee! You don’t know shit!”

“I don’t know shit? Really, Ace? Really?” The quiet calm in her voice scares me. Does her lack of fight mean she’s over me? Fuck, no. “Well how’s this? I know a bastard when I see one.”

Self preservation wins.

“Been called worse by better, sweetheart.” I’m not sure if the words are meant as a challenge or a coup de grace. Will she fight for me or flee while she can?

I know my answer in the flash of her hand aiming for my face. Her wrists collide into my hands without a thought, our bodies crashing together with the motion, our lips inches apart. And I’m fucking frozen. Paralyzed in that space of time where I immediately take back everything I said, everything I did, and just crave the simplicity of her addictive taste.

Just want it to be her and me back in front of that mirror. Just want to be man enough and not fucked-up enough that when she says those words to me, I don’t cringe. I don’t feel the blackness swallow me whole and smother the air in my lungs, but rather look in her eyes and smile.

Accept.

Reciprocate.

Love.

Her voice breaks through my haze of regret. “If you were done with me … had your fill of me … you could have just told me!” Hurt fills her eyes and trembles across her lips.

And now that I’ve done it—now that I’ve pushed her away and hurt her with my callous comments—all I want is her back in my arms, my life, at my side. Because done with her? Does she really think that?

As if a single taste of her will ever be enough.

“I’ll never have my fill of you.” I say the words but see the disbelief still warring in her eyes so I give into the ache. Show her the only way that I know how. Search for the balm to soothe my aching soul and the bleach to purify my blackened heart.

My mouth slants over hers. Takes and tastes and demands. I accept her struggle, accept the fact that she hates me because I hate myself too, but I can feel the need vibrate between us. Can sense that this hunger will never be satisfied. That I’ll never want it to.

She keeps struggling, keeps wanting to hurt me. And I want to tell her to do just that. Hurt me like I deserve. Hurt and love are equivalent to me. The only way I know that love is supposed to be.

But I see it in her eyes. The pain I’ve caused. And yet I still feel the love from her. Still feel like she wants this. Wants me. And even despite all of this … all of the hurt and confusion and spiteful words we spit at each other, I want her desperately. Have to have her desperately.

And I plan to take. I have to get us back to where we were. Where we need to be. To the only place my soul has felt at peace over the past twenty-odd years.

Back to Rylee.

“You want rough, Rylee?” And despite the contempt in her eyes, I do the only thing I know how to reclaim her. “I’ll give you rough!”

My lips connect with hers and I do the only thing I can: I take what I want so desperately. What’s mine.

To save myself.



This chapter was originally written completely in Colton’s point of view (the scene below), but after some discussion with my beta readers, I decided that using Colton’s voice here took away from the impact in the next chapter. I rewrote the scene through Rylee’s eyes and published that instead.