Page 82 of Owned

She leaned forward and her arms came up as she dislodged my hold, then she slid them around my neck so my face was inches from hers. Her eyes were so dark, the expression in them making the anvil in my chest get heavier and heavier. “Why not?” she murmured. “What is making you so afraid?”

“Because I don’t want to hurt you.”

“How are you hurting me?”

“What the fuck do you think this is?” I gestured at the room around us. “Public sex. For my own titillation and amusement. That I manipulated you into?—”

“You didn’t manipulate me,” she interrupted, her tone still rock steady. “I wanted to do it. For you and as it turned out, for myself as well.”

“Fuck, Rowan. It means nothing. None of this is?—”

“Don’t you dare.” Her arms tightened around me. “Don’t you dare cheapen it.” This time her gaze had taken on a ferocity that was the dark heart of her. “This meant something to me. This was powerful for me and I won’t have you take that away from me.”

I couldn’t speak. I looked into her lovely eyes and saw the truth. She meant it and that stopped the words in my throat.

But still. What she’d said to me had changed everything, had just upped the stakes a hundred-fold and I couldn’t do it.

Love had ruined my mother and it had ruined me. I would not let it ruin Rowan too.

“This can’t happen,” I said. “You know that, right? Loving me is a one way ticket to disaster and I can’t?—”

“Oh sure,” she said interrupting me yet again. “You’re worried that you’re a bad man, that you helped a friend cover up a murder, that you’re your father, blah, blah, blah.”

Anger rose inside me then and I pulled her arms away, taking her shoulders once again in a tight grip. “Shut up,” I said fiercely. “Just shut the fuck up. Do you know what it’s like to walk into a bathroom to find your mother drowned in the bath? She was naked and the water was cold and she was blue.” The memory was suddenly right in front of my face, fresh as the day it had happened. “And that was my fault,” I went on, spitting the words at her. “She’d tried to ask me for help in the days leading up to it, but I didn’t listen. Do you hear me? I. Didn’t. Fucking. Listen.” I gave her a shake with each word. “And do you know why I didn’t listen?”

Rowan said nothing, just staring at me.

“Because my father told me that she was being a whiny bitch and we were supposed to ignore whiny bitches. And I believe him. Because I loved him.”

The words were like stones thrown into a pond, the water rippling out around us, disturbing the silence, turning it into a deafening noise.

Yet the expression on her face didn’t change. “You were a boy,” she said. “You were his son, of course you loved him. You were his victim, too, Atlas.”

I couldn’t stand sitting there any more, with her warm weight and her glorious nakedness, and the strength I saw in her face. With as much care as I could manage, I pushed her out of my lap and got to my feet, reaching for my jeans.

She just sat there on the couch, looking at me. “And you still are,” she said.

“No.” I began to pull on my jeans, my movements rough with anger. “I’m no fucking victim. Do I look like one to you?” I began to button up my fly, a wordless fury in my chest that I couldn’t seem to push aside. “I ruined him, Rowan. I took his fucking company from him and when he shot himself in his car, I was glad. I fucking cheered.”

“If you’re not his victim, then why are you so angry about it?” She was sitting crosslegged on the couch like a little goddess, as if her nakedness was of no matter. “It’s been years, Atlas. Why are you still punishing yourself?”

“Is this really what you want?” I demanded, ignoring the question because it didn’t deserve an answer. “Me nothing more than a feral animal, guarding you day and night. Suffocating you and controlling you and?—”

“You won’t do that,” she cut me off yet again. “That feeling inside you, the one you hate. The one that you think makes you a monster isn’t something to be afraid of. It’s caring, Atlas. It’s love and I think you love me just as much as I love you. And you love this child, too. That’s why you’re crazy and that’s why you’re afraid.”

I couldn’t stand it then, not one single minute. This woman, this child, who’d only been born a minute ago confidently telling me what love is when she had no fucking idea. None. She didn’t know how toxic it was or how it could break you, how it could get into the cracks in your heart and rip them wide open.

She didn’t know.

Love was a narcissist. Love was a demanding monster that required relentless feeing.

Love had devoured my mother and it had devoured me.

“You have no fucking idea what my feelings are,” I said harshly. “I’ve had forty one years of dealing with that bullshit, and you’re here for two seconds and you think you know my own heart better than I do?”

She didn’t look away. “You think I don’t know what love is? You’re wrong, Atlas Blackwood. Love is putting away the knives so your mother can’t harm herself with them. Love is getting her meds and making sure she takes them every day. Love is taking shit jobs so Mom can eat and not waste away. Love is putting my Mom ahead of everything, because she needs me.”

“You’re making your own argument for me,” I snapped.

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