Page 83 of Tempt

His face fell. “I wasn’t ready to tell you this yet.”

“I told you I didn’t want any more secrets. And this? This is a big fucking secret. It isn’t like your stories about jacking cars at sixteen. This is huge and it directly involves me.”

He stared at the picture of Nicki. “I thought about telling you a couple of times, but it sounded so ridiculous. ‘You know that building you’ve been working on all this time? Let me tell you a story.’ It didn’t sound real.”

I could see what he meant, but it didn’t change how I felt. “What else haven’t you told me?”

His eyes flashed with anger as he looked up at me. “This isn’t easy, Allison. You can’t just demand answers and expect me to be able to give them.”

“Why not? What’s so hard about relaying facts?”

That was clearly not the right thing to say. Theo pushed back from the table and stood. Anger and frustration oozed out of every pore. His eyes were nearly black the pupils had dilated so wide, and the vein at his throat pulsed with each beat of his heart. “This isn’t some silly little story about a bad night. This is my life.My entire life.And you want it boiled down to facts? It’s not that simple.”

I instantly regretted pushing Theo. He wasn’t ready for any of this. Not me, not the things we felt for each other, and certainly not his feelings about the past. I’d gone too far, too fast, and now Theo was going to push back just as hard. My heart was already breaking and he hadn’t said a thing.

His words were angry, even, and designed to cut. “It would take me days to tell you everything, so let’s just cut to the chase…I’m the devil. The worst possible nightmare that could ever come into your life. You think I’m redeemable, but I’m not. I’ve just spent a decade pretending to be decent, but in the next twenty-four hours I am going to systematically destroy two men, and then watch them die.AndI’m going to fucking enjoy every second of it. I am the exact same man I’ve always been. There’s no changing that.”

I shook my head, tears spilling down my cheeks, because I knew he was lying. Not about Toni or Dan, I knew he was telling me the truth about that. But the rest? That he was the devil or that he was going to enjoy watching them die? Those were lies. Lies he was telling to scare me away.

He huffed and shook his head. “Still not enough. You’re a tough nut, you. How about this then?I don’t love you. I knew what I was doing when I picked you up in Higgins’ club. I’ve done it a dozen times before. I pick up the girls I know I can sweep off their feet with the quiet guy routine.”

“Liar,” I said between my teeth. Theo didn’t pick up girls.

“I’m not lying, darlin’.”

Yes he was. Theo never looked me directly in the eye when he lied unless he was trying to make himself believe it, too. And right now, he was looking me in the eyes so intently I thought he might pop a blood vessel. “I know when you lie. I know you, and you’re lying right now.”

He kept staring, trying to drive his point home. And the thing was, I almost believed him. His words cut so deep, in just the right ways, that I almost let it hurt me.

I wiped away my tears. “You can lie and push me away if that’s what makes this easier for you, but it doesn’t change the fact that I know you’re lying.” I walked past him and into the bedroom where I grabbed my bag out of the closet and started throwing my things inside.

“What are you doing?” The waver in his voice was proof that he was a liar.

“I’m packing, what does it look like I’m doing, genius?”

“Why?” His voice raised an octave in panic, which only pissed me off. He’d just gone to a great deal of effort to push me away, and now he was shocked that I was leaving?

I spun on my heel. “Well, you’re either lying or you don’t love me. Either way, this isn’t where I should be.”

He stood frozen, watching me pack, looking very unsure of what to do next. It was a look I’d never seen on Theo before. I guess he hadn’t taken the time to calculate out this move. For the first time I got to see Theo truly naked—reacting when he had no idea what to do next.

He put himself between my bag and me. He didn’t say anything. He just stood there, staring at me, as if his mere presence could change my mind. When I reached around him, he took my face in his hands, but didn’t kiss me.

I didn’t kiss him.

“What, Theo? Want it both ways?” I got the reaction I wanted. I was on my back on the bed so fast I didn’t know which way was up.

I wrapped my legs around his waist and ground against him as he hungrily took my mouth, kissed down my throat, and stripped me. We were a tangled mess of hands and clothes. We were angry and we were frantic.

He wanted to scare me away and he wanted me to stay.

He didn’t want to live without me but didn’t want to hurt me.

It was a hundred different kinds of fucked up with no answer that made any sense. Which was why I had a feeling I’d hit on some other secret. A much deeper secret. The kind that might be too big to handle…and that had scared him so badly he’d reacted before thinking.

I cried out as he thrust inside me. This time the pain wasn’t pleasurable—it was relief. I needed the pain to match the way I felt inside. It was cathartic. He wasn’t slow or careful and I didn’t want him to be. I encouraged his frantic thrusts, rocking my hips up to meet him, pulling at his back and ass to help him move deeper.

The idea of walking away cracked me in two. I’d never felt a pain so deep or intense. So I relished every thrust and grunt from Theo. It was the only balm I was going to get in the middle of this messed up pain.

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