Page 17 of Live for Me

Where the hell was all that control I was supposed to have over myself?

“Is it my turn to ask you something?” I tried.

“No.”

“I’m doing it anyway.”

She paused just to flip me in the back of the head before she went back to trying to separate my muscle from where it was attached to the bone.

“That little rant you went on earlier. Karma not being fast enough and the vigilante.”

“What about it?” she asked quietly.

“Just seems like some mighty big talk for the smallest woman I’ve ever known in real life, who also refuses to use a gun on someone,” I laughed. “How do you plan on going about this revenge scheme if you’re not going to use a weapon?”

“I don’t have any desire tokillour President.”

“Then what is it that youdowant?”

“I want him to experience what he’s done to all of us. He’s put his entire life into building this vast expanse of interconnected shady businesses. He was willing to do anything to anyone to get to this point. To be sitting pretty at the top of his empire with his money and his power and what he probably believes is the equivalent of security because of it. And I want to rip it all out from under him, one by one, until I get to watch him topple all the way to the bottom.”

“That’s…dark.”

“Every single one of us could’ve had a normal life. Or at least a chance at a normal life. Jersey would still have his daughter, his wife, his parents. I might’ve finished high school. I could’ve gone to college, become anything I wanted. Maybe I would’ve eventually found a boyfriend who was into the weird goth girl with the black hair. Maybe I would’ve at least had a choice, a say in any of it. But it didn’t go that way because the life that I knew was taken from me. So, I want to take his peace of mind. I want to take everything that’s ever made him feel happy or successful. I want his power and his sense of safety. And I want to fucking destroy it in front of him, so he’s left with nothing but his memories of how great things were, and the thoughts of how great things could’ve been if it hadn’t all been ripped away.”

I stood up to escape her hands so I could turn to face her again after that shit. She immediately sat back on her heels and looked down into her own lap to avoid my eyes, like she was suddenly embarrassed she’d said any of it out loud. I stepped all the way against the edge of the bed so I could take her face in both my hands, and I pulled her back up onto her knees to bring her closer to me again.

Close enough that I was nearly fucking certain that her nipples really were pierced, because I could feel the metal through this hilariously thin tank top, and they were currently pressed right into my stomach.

Focus, you fucking horn dog.

“Anger like that is a dangerous thing to carry around if you don’t know what to do with it, sugar.”

She swallowed so hard that I could feelandhear it.

I needed her to find a way to cut and run if she expected me not to kiss her while I held her face this close to mine and did my damndest to look right into her soul.

I nearly imploded while I watched that tongue stud come out between her lips to try to wet them so she could figure out how to speak through them again.

“Maybe you can show me what to do with it,” she whispered.

“You could ask me to show you the snow in hell and I’d sell my soul right to Satan for a fucking snowflake, Memphis.”

“I’m starting to wonder if maybe I’m not really the weird one between the two of us.”

Her hands found their way to my hips, and I let myself think for a brief, dangerous moment that she might’ve been waiting for me to kiss her.

She smiled and leaned her forehead against my chest.

“I don’t know what this is, Utah. And I don’t know if I can do more than whatever this is right now, but it’s nice.”

I breathed in as much oxygen as my lungs could handle to try to force the ogre half of my brain to chill the fuck out.

She wasn’t ready for this.

She wasn’t ready for me.

I knew that. I really did. My normal brain could see that from miles away.

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