Page 9 of Tyrant

“I know.” Her eyes change, lighting in the dark, spotlights that land on my face and rake over me possessively. This is no tale of woe and accusation. Her gaze is hot. No longer that of a child, but of a woman. I’m pinned in place, at a loss, robbed of my breath and my eloquence and all my power.

“That’s not what’s wrong with me. What’s wrong with me is you. I can’t eat or sleep. I can’t fucking function.” The curse on her sweet lips feels wrong. It’s far worse that I want to dip my tongue between them and taste it, lap at the bitterness and feed her back fire until she’s nothing but sweet moans and renewed strength. “I don’t want to be in Seattle. I want to be with you. I’m notinlove with you, so there’s no way I’ll ever fall out of it. Iamlove. I’ve always loved you. I need you to fix me. Fix my life. Make it livable. Give me something I can keep. I know it’s wrong. I know that, but I can’t stop wanting. I want to be the oneon the back of your bike. At your side. I’d ask you to leave, to run away with me, but I know that once you patch in, you’re in for life. I know you can’t walk away. I’ll never have you like that and leaving would only break you, just like me trying to remove myself from Hart and get a clean break with the past has eaten away at my soul. You’ll rule this town one day and I want to be your queen. I want to give myself to you. I want you to take me.”

My heart twists in my chest, brutal and bitter over the thoughts I’ve had since I took Lark to prom and saw her looking like a goddamn woman for the first time and noticed that she’d grown up. Not just thoughts, but dreams. Moments I’ve indulged in like the sick prick I am. My stomach bottoms out because this isn’t a dream. This isn’t some fantasy while I stroke my dick in the shower or the dead of night, guilty as fuck about doing it and wanting her. This is real.

I’m half desperate to reach for her and half appalled. “The only way I’m taking you is back the way we came, to your parents’ house.”

She reaches out, her tiny, dainty hand hovering in the space between us. I pull back immediately, flattening myself to my seat. This isn’t self-preservation. This is ruin.

She doesn’t touch me. Her lips twist in that same sarcastic, pouty way they used to when she was still a kid.

Not a kid. She was a teenager by then, full of sass and fire and she could give far better than she ever got from you and Raiden.She was smarter. Straining at the repressive seams her parents sewed around her so they wouldn’t lose her too. She’s always wanted a taste of the darkness.That’s all I am. Just temptation. She wants to see what it feels like to sin.

“Fuck that, you’re not.” She moves fast, her hand changing direction. She grabs the keys out of the ignition, throws her door open, and marches straight around to the front of the car. My two-story farmhouse shimmers like a beacon in the dark, the ancient white wood siding with the peeling paint, watching us, the red barn beyond that.

Lark has no plans on marching up to it and using my keys to let herself in. She rounds the front of the car, arches her arm, and throws them as hard and as far into the dark night as she can. She turns and her glowing eyes meet mine through the windshield. “At prom… youlookedat me. The things you said… I know you’ve thought about me too. I tried to get away, to break the hold you have on me, but how can I do that when you own every single bit of me? It’s broken me, brought me back here, brought me straight to you. We’re dealing with this. Now. Tonight.” She loses the feral determination, a pleading note entering her tone. “I need you to fix me because you’re the only one who can.”

I can’t.

I’ve already fucked up her brother’s life. I won’t fuck hers up too. I might want her. I might have pined for her and thought about her and let her invade my mind since fucking June, but I won’t spread that sickness to her. I won’t let it infect her. She needs to be far, far away from here.

I hurtle out of the car in search of my keys, but she steps into my path. I gave my vow to Raiden. To my club. They’re all I have.

Lark’s hand cups my cheek, shockingly warm even though it’s frigid out here. Her other hand curls through my unzipped leather jacket. I run hot and always have. Her touchinvades me, her small palm flattening out on top of my heart. The worst mistake I ever made was trusting that blood comes before anything. It blinded me to what my father truly was, and Raiden paid the price. I’ve known for months now that I’ll burn the world down to set things right.

My world is burning down alright. Just not the way I ever could have imagined.

My hands move without my consent or my command. One buries itself in that soft, glorious mane of hair and clamps down hard and possessive on the back of Lark’s neck. I crush our foreheads together, our breath painted white clouds.

“I can’t, Lark.”

Her eyes flutter closed. “I know. I know.”

But she tilts her face up and straight through the dark I can see the loneliness, the longing, the desire, the very thing I can’t define because I’m fucking afraid to. I’m afraid to touch her because I know that doing it means ripping my own soul out and entrusting her with it. It means replacing it with her own, a bloody carving and swapping that will only make us both hemorrhage. She’s off limits even for me, a man who doesn’t entirely believe in laws.

She whimpers, the sound so pained and distressed.

You need to fix me because you’re the only one who can.

I need to obey the same rules I set for every other prick out there who ever thought of laying a finger on Lark Gardiner. One wrong move and it would tip the scales. Lark is the kind of woman that a man wants to own. She’d make a glorious queen and I know that if I even think about having her, I’ll never want to let her go.

I can’t. I can’t, and I won’t.

But she can and she will.

She reaches up and wraps her hands around the back of my neck, claiming and possessing me like I just did with my own big palm. She arches up and brings my face down. There’s the tiniest sigh, like a little bird in its death throes, crashing from the sky and plummeting to the earth.

I live in sin and carnage, smoke and blood. It’s where I’ve lived my whole fucking life. It’s impossible to make her understand when I’ve done everything I can to keep it from her. Corrupted. Rough. An outlaw. I’m not good at many things, but I am good at being a biker. It’s in my blood, right from my own grandfather.

“Lark…”

“Shh.” Her finger presses to my lips.

She doesn’t want my confession. She just wants me.

I’m a strong man, but the dark of my soul cries out for her. We’d be corruption and innocence. I’ve burned for her right down to ash. The idea of her shamed me, but the reality of her eviscerates me. My vows. My honor. This moment is my downfall.

The oldest tale in the goddamn world.

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