Page 169 of Filthy Love

“I didn’t mean to yell. I’m fucking sorry, little bit. Forgive me.” He kissed her all over her cheeks and eyes. “I’m a goddamn asshole, you know this.”

She’d hurt for him if he told her.

Gia was that kind of woman.

That kind that bled for someone else.

And Hawk would rather cut off his own balls than do anything to hurt his little bit of a thing.

“My asshole,” she murmured making him smile.

But this was what she wanted from him, wasn’t it? To cut out his cancer and present her with it. To let her see every undisclosed, diseased scab oozing with his past, for what? So, she could be disgusted alongside him?

He’d lose her. What if she didn’t believe him?

Shit. This was fucked up, he thought. So wrong.

She made him feel. Period.

Things swirled in his head that he’d never felt before.

Foreign, unfamiliar, uncomfortable things.

Things that he wanted to do to please his woman.

But this was different. Something new. And it was making him want to vomit every goddamn word into her ears.

Just confess until he was hoarse and empty.

He was evil.

He was wicked.

The devil lived in him.

He knew those were slurs of people not fit to eat dog shit. People who hid behind bibles and the word of God to duct tape over the fact they were fucking sick, as if throwing out psalm passages would expunge their depraved sins.

Fuck them all.

The shithe’ddone he owned it and didn’t fucking care.

The ugly truth, Gia was too good for him, everyone at this point could agree to that and he’d used any reason to hold onto her tight, to keep her for however long she allowed him in her life. If that made him a fucking weak bastard, then he accepted it.

For the right person a man could lower his guard and show a side of him no one else would ever see.

To people he was the deranged, unfeeling, animalistic gets shit done VP.

For Gia he had to be a whole other person, otherwise he’d lose her.

Unaware he was breathing heavily through his nostrils, she placed her hand on his cheek to bring his head back into the here and now.

Even with her eyes brimming with tears, and her cheekbones highlighted in color she was so incredibly beautiful it hurt his chest.

He squeezed her tighter, loved her harder.

“Come back to me, Hawk.”

He swallowed. “I’m right here.”