Page 64 of Kings Fear No One
Why is this shit so complicated? Why can’t it be clean and easy? Why can’t I make her understand?
“It’s not you,” I mutter, my back turned on her. “You keep thinking it is. But it’s not.”
“Thanks… that makes me feel better. It’s not me. There’s no reason why you don’t want me. It just is.”
“That’s not it either—why won’t you drop it?” I spin around, a vexed expression clenched onto my face. “Why do you insist on making it difficult?”
“Because you haven’t said an honest thing tonight. You haven’t made any sense.”
“What have I said that doesn’t make sense?” I snap, taking a step toward her.
She holds her ground despite the tremble her jaw gives. “You don’t want me staying. You want me to know the marriage will be dissolved. But when I try to leave you don’t let?—”
“’Cuz you’re always trying to run off when you shouldn’t! At the worst fucking times,” I rant, drowning her out. My pulse gathers speed, seizing the chance to expel some of the pent up energy inside of me. “And you’re too damn foolish to realize I’m doing what’s best for you. I’m looking out for you. Preventing you from getting hurt by?—”
Me.
My mouth clamps shut before the last word barrels out. A word that would reveal too fucking much.
Understanding dawns in her big, expressive eyes. “You think you’re protecting me.”
“Yeah? From who?”
“You,” she says stubbornly. “That’s what you really mean, right? That’s why you really push me away?”
“Teysha, it’s time for bed. Go to fucking bed.”
She mulls over the discovery in silence, her thoughts impossible to predict. Times like this I wish I were a mind reader. Her brow’s still pinched, her lips still downturned into a frown. A couple runaway tears slide down the swell of her cheeks.
“You have the right to feel how you do. But so do I,” she says after the lengthy pause. The anguish has vanished from her voice, replaced by a resoluteness that’s sad and earnest. “All I know is that things were taken from me against my will. Many times. More times than I can remember. My whole life changed—not for the better—and I’ve been left to pick up the fragments and make sense of it all.
“Every time I’ve… I’ve been with a man has been forced on me. It was never anything I asked for. But I found comfort in one of the men who I was with. The same man I was married off to,” she explains with a hard swallow. “Call it twisted, call it sick, call it wrong. I can’t help that I started to feel things for him. For you. And, for the first time in my life—since all of that happened to me—I wanted for it to be my choice. I wanted that with you. I hoped… you would give it to me. I’m sorry for being so foolish.”
Teysha grabs her Bible and pillow, muttering something about sleeping in the other room tonight. I’ve fallen quiet hearing her confession and learning what I’d never considered. That she could really want this.
Not because of her religious beliefs. Not because she wanted to play pretend.
Because she wanted something real. She wanted something that was her choice.
I catch her by the arm as she passes me up on her walk toward the door. Holding her where she is, I peer into her face, every beat of my heart harder than the one before it.
“You want me?” I repeat slowly, searching her gaze. “You really want me?”
“I want what you made me feel when you were with me,” she answers. “All those times. Except… I want it to be us together because it’s what we’re choosing.”
How the fuck did I ever miss this possibility? How hadn’t I considered it before?
This isn’t like before, where I was forced to have her for the entertainment of others. This is Teysha making a choice for herself.
…and she chooses me.
At least in this moment. For right now, it doesn’t matter if I’m good for her or not. She wants to be with me.
I’d be a liar to say I’ve got enough willpower to resist.
I take a slow step toward her, eliminating what little space exists between us. Her breath quickens. Mine does too, sounding like crushed gravel. My hand comes up to cup her cheek, cautious and measured as if I’m touching a precious artifact beyond any conceivable value.
She leans into my touch so subtly, you’d think she were afraid of it being real. She’s as hesitant as I am to lower her defenses.
