Page 67 of Hell to Pay

“No, but Isawyou, Lilah. I fucking saw you, just like I see you now, and I knew you were better than them, and it fucking killed me that you slunk around like some kind of fucking wallflower.”

I shook my head. “So you… what? Wanted them toseeme?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “You’re not getting it. It wasn’t about them. It was about you. I wanted you to fight back. I wanted you not to take it — from them or me or anyone.”

“How was taking nudes of me while I was drunk and sending them to the whole school going to accomplish that?”

“I thought you’d fight back, okay?!” he shouted. “Maybe not against us, that night, but later, when everyone got the pictures. I thought you’d finally raise your head above the fucking parapet and sayenoughto those assholes and hold your head high and tell them to fuck off. Because that was the only way — the only fucking way — they were ever going to do it.”

“That’s… that’s sick.” Tears stung my eyes. “I wasn’t some kind of psychological experiment, Rafe. I was aperson. It wasn’t for you to decide whether I needed to be braver or… bolder or… whatever! It wasn’t for you to push me out into the spotlight with no clothes and hope I’d dance instead of fall to pieces.”

“I know that now, okay? I fucking know. But back then I was just…”

I folded my arms over my chest. “Just what?”

“I was just so fucking sick of watching people like you get pushed around.”

“People like me?” I was confused, and I was starting to feel like there was more he wasn’t telling me. “Whatpeople like me?”

He paced away from me and sat on one of the workout benches, then dropped his head in his hands. “I ever tell you my old man’s a drunk?”

“No, and if you think that’s going to make me feel sorry for you, think again. We all have shit to deal with.”

He barked out a laugh. “See? I always knew you were a ballbuster.” He shook his head. “It’s not about me. I told you. It’s about you.”

“Then get to that part.” I was being sucked into his story, wanting to know why he was the way he was, what had made him that way, but I wasn’t going to let him distract me from finally getting an answer to the question I’d had for five years.

“My dad beat on my mom as long as I could remember. She was like you, fierce and powerful, but she forgot all of that being married to him, getting the shit kicked out of her all the time. When I was little, I’d hide, listen to them fight, hope this would be the time she’d fight back, but she never did. Then when I got older — bigger — I tried to fight for her, but she wouldn’t allow it. She would fuckingdefendhim. Can you believe that shit?”

I had the feeling it was a rhetorical question.

“Anyway, I got used to taking a beating, but I never got used to watching him wale on my mom, watching her shrink to make him happy, to keep the peace, watching her make herself small so he could feel big.”

“I’m not your mom, Rafe.” It came out quieter than I intended.

Nicer than I intended.

“I know, but it was the same fucking thing.” He met my gaze and I saw something in his eyes that scared me, an emotion so powerful I thought it might pull me in, drag me under, hold me there until I couldn’t breathe. Until I didn’t want to. “You shone so fucking bright, Lilah. You tried to hide it behind your hair, tried to hide it in the books you read before class started. You tried to be invisible, but I fuckingsawyou, and as much as I hated everyone in school for not seeing you too, I hated you more for not seeing yourself. For not knowing you were better than them.”

“So you thought you’d leak my nudes and shit would hit the fan and I’d suddenly grow a backbone and tell them all to fuck off?” I asked.

“It sounds stupid as fuck now, but like they say, hindsight is twenty-twenty. And you’ve got to admit, the outcome would have been better in my version.”

“Fuck you, Rafe.” I was shaking with anger. “Just… fuck you.”

I headed for the door of the gym, my knife still in my hand, barely able to breathe through my rage.

But I never made it. He grabbed on to my arm and spun me around, then backed me against the wall of mirrors. The glass was cool against my back but it was overridden by the heat of his body pressed against mine.

He planted his hands on either side of my head and glared down at me, eyes flashing like polished flint.

“It wasn’t a TV show, Rafe. It wasn’t a choose-your-own-adventure novel where I got to try out different versions of a story. It was mylife.” I’d meant to scream it at him, to hurl it at him like the judgement he deserved, but instead it came out small and full of pain even I could hear.

“I know.” His voice cracked. “And ‘I’m sorry’ will never be enough. It was never going be enough.”

The air crackled around us, not only with anger but with a lust so raw it felt primal.

He dropped his head to my neck and I heard him inhale, felt his breath against the skin of my throat. My nipples were immediately hard, wet heat pooling between my thighs.

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