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The firm line of his lips pinches then parts. “Do you remember what happened last night?”
My fingers flinch around the glass of water. Hesitant, I slip the pill into my mouth.
His cool palm slides against my cheek, forcing my eyes to his as I swallow. His eyes lock on my throat. Heat swarms when he grazes the pad of his thumb down the line of my esophagus. “Yes, then?” His hand closes around my neck moments before he leans in and forces my mouth to his.
He doesn’t wait long to cut off my air, and I’m still choking long after he pulls away. Coughing as his hand releases me, I gasp, forcing breath into my lungs.
Scrubbing his mouth, he swears, “—stale…” Right when I think the burning in my lungs has subsided, he catches my jaw again and makes me look at him. “And yet…you’re still the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”
My cheeks explode, my ears blazing.
I am sorely unprepared to navigate whatever is going on during a hangover. When he sets me squarely aside in favor of getting his tablet off the nightstand, I teeter, hardly catching myself on my hands before I tumble after his shifting weight.
“What do you remember?” he asks.
Half dizzy, I stare as he opens a document with everything that happened last night recorded in terrible black and white. Some things, I remember.
Some.
Some I don’t.
The words cut into my chest as the horrors consume my every aching thought.
“What was that?” Rowan murmurs before I realize I’ve said a thing.
Broken, I repeat the words. “I’m…so sorry.” I have to close my eyes. I don’t anticipate the sensation of a tear to trace down my cheek.
Nor would I ever expect Rowan to wipe it away.
“I didn’t mean any of it. I was confused, and scared, and I took it out on you. I’m so—so sor—”
Rowan chuckles.
I find the cynicism on his face. It’s a dreadful, wry expression—completely raw. It sends a chill through me, suffocating my apology.
“Sweetheart—” A man has never sounded more patronizing around me and lived. “—do you think you could possibly hate me as much as I hate myself?” He scrolls through the text on his iPad, indifferent. “Weak. Pitiful. Stupid, frustrating, pathetic. Nothing.” His smile falls as he stops with his finger beside the bold word. “I appreciate knowing what you really think of me.”
“I don—”
His gaze spears me. “You don’t?” He hums. “Well, whether you do or not, it doesn’t matter.” Shutting the device off, he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. “What you think of me comes nowhere close to mattering right now, Briar. It hurts, sure, but knowing my faults is nothing new. Not only that, I didn’t believe you believed any of this before your claim just now. You can think I’m a delusional idiot, still clinging to an idea that I’m special or different, but—” His eyes snap open. “—I’ve seen the way your body moves for me. I’ve memorized the soft sounds that escape you when my hands are on you. I’ve held you. For nights on end. I’ve lain awake as you unconsciously, desperately, press closer until we’re a tangle of limbs. I smell like you.” His hand falls against my leg, over the comforter, and even though there’s thick fabric, a sheet, and my dress between, I feel the weight of each finger. “If there is any truth to what you said, you’ve given me permission to rewrite your brain, haven’t you?”
“I—”
His fingers squeeze my leg, commanding. “Haven’t you?”
My stomach dips down so very low. I whisper, “Yes.”
“So all these points, all the things you said that are weighing like a steaming—” He swears. “—cesspool of guilt in your eyes don’t matter in the slightest. Do they?”
All at once, the fear of letting whatever this is between us go too far morphs into something equally terrifying—the fear of not going far enough.
I’m not here to want him. I’m not here to touch him or taste him or have him.
If he knew the truth about my family, about me, about everything, he wouldn’t be able to reason like this. We don’t get to be safe. Ours is not a world where safe things thrive.
“I never meant to hurt you, Rowan. I promise. I was upset and confused. I thought you’d tried to hurt me, so I tried to get even. That’s all. I’m sorry.”
“Hurt me?” His fingers dig into my thigh, crushing. “Briar, you scared me.”
